Freakin' Worth It
by Halfpint Fountainpen
Summary: While hunting a dire-cougar, Dean and Sam end up in Pine Valley. At first it seems like your typical Middle-of-Nowhere, USA kind of town, but when they meet Ivy and Charlie Griffin-two hunter cousins with a closet full of skeletons-they find themselves in the middle of a 150-year long battle between this world, and the world of the Faeries./Dean,Sam,Cas,OC's,slightAU. Pls R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**Note: I started writing this ages and ages ago, back around halfway through Season 3. I got up to about Chapter 2 when I stopped writing and fell behind on the show. A very long while later, I caught up with the show and decided to finally finish this. Of course, by that time so much had happened in the series that the direction this was going in changed completely...and of course, there's a slight issue of where this fits in on the Supernatural Chronology. Hm, good question. It goes somewhere. It's a bit of an AU fic that takes place sometime in Season 7. I say "AU" because Bobby's still alive, Cas is still good ol' Cas, and the Leviathans aren't around. Why? Because I said so, haha! Other than that, ****I suppose what I'm trying to say is, enjoy this for what it is - a story set in between some episodes in the series. I hope you like it! (Also, I don't own Supernatural. But it pretty much owns my soul.)**

* * *

**Chapter One**

Ivy Griffin was not having a good day. She'd spent the whole morning crawling through dense underbrush and investigating vales, and now it looked as if she was going to spend her whole night in a tree desperately hoping to stay alive. Meanwhile, below her a dire-cougar was doing its best to shred her haven into matchsticks.

"It's too damn early in the season for this," Ivy grumbled to herself. Suddenly the possessed overgrown cat leaped into the air; it landed on the tree and gouged deep rows into the pine with its nine-inch claws. Ivy screeched in alarm and, after wedging her shotgun in the crook of a branch, swung herself up onto another large, sturdy bough.

"Just dandy," she growled, retrieving her shotgun. The blasted thing had chased her up this tree and now she couldn't get a sight on it to blast it back to whatever hellhole it had crawled out of. She gritted her teeth and tried to think of a way out. The trees in this part of the forest were close-set, but were they close enough for her to monkey her way through the canopy?

Below her, the already-riled dire-cougar was boiling to a frenzy. There wasn't much time left before it decided to quit playing around and turn her into humanburger. _Think, girl, for God's sake, think! _She nearly lost it when the dire-cougar let out a bloodcurdling roar, and peered frantically through the foliage to see if there was a branch from a nearby tree close enough to swing on to. If she could do it fast enough…

* * *

"Did you hear that?"

Dean Winchester straightened up and pursed his lips, wiping the dirt from his fingers. "That roar? Yeah." He'd just found some interesting tracks on the forest floor – not warm, but made not too long before he'd found them.

"Sounded like a big cat," Sam remarked. "Could be what we're looking for – there aren't many around in this neck of the woods…" He frowned. "…no pun intended."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever, Sammy," he scoffed, referring to the obvious pun. Another roar split the silent, heavy air in the woods. "Let's go!"

He took off into the underbrush with Sam on his heels.

* * *

Ivy was stuck. There was no way for her to get into the nearest adjacent tree – not unless she suddenly morphed into a monkey. She flexed her grip on her shotgun, absentmindedly chewing on her lower lip as she formulated her new plan. If she scooted ahead on her branch just a bit more, she decided, there was a possibility of getting a sight on the dire-cougar and kicking its furry butt back into hell. Ivy had two bullets but only one chance – and the window on that chance was running out.

The creature was now pacing around at the base of the tree, sniffing at its roots and trunk – in essence, biding its time and toying with her. Ivy knew it could smell and see her through the pine's branches; she knew it was only just waiting for her to let her guard down.

"Not happening, bitch," Ivy said spitefully. Sliding her shotgun back into its custom-made holster on her back, she wrapped her arms and legs around the bough and pulled herself forward slowly but surely the few precious inches she needed. It wasn't much, but it was enough…it _had _to be enough.

* * *

Dean and Sam broke through the underbrush to find themselves in a most unusual clearing. It was roughly circular in shape, but the ground the brothers stood on was level for only a few feet before dropping off in a steep slope. The ground was covered thickly in moss and lichen, and Dean's sharp eyes followed a broken trail of uprooted vegetation towards a tree on the far side.

"Sam," he whispered, pointing. Their mark – an enormous dire-cougar – was pacing at the foot a slashed pine tree. Judging by the ravaged tree and the churned-up forest floor around it, the hellcat had chased something up it and was biding its time, waiting to attack.

"Why's it just pacing like that?" Sam whispered back.

"These things don't attack until they're sure their prey has let their guard down," Dean murmured back. "Whatever it's chased up that tree is just as alert as it is…" He shrugged his shoulders to loosen them up and stretched his back. "Come on, Sammy. Let's plug this thing."

* * *

Breathing rhythmically to steady herself, Ivy clung tightly to the bough with her legs and one arm. She reached around with her free arm and slowly pulled her shotgun back out. Ivy didn't need crosshairs to land a perfect headshot, but a steady rest for her shotgun helped immensely. Fortune had smiled upon her, and the bough divided just in front of her, providing her with a convenient improvised tripod rest for her weapon. She had a clear sight to the forest floor below, and all she had to do was wait for the dire-cougar to pass through it.

She narrowed her eyes, staring down the barrel of her shotgun through the break in the pine needles. Two bullets…one chance.

* * *

"What's our plan?" Dean hissed, stealthily loading up his shotgun with the shells they'd made the previous night.

Sam checked the sights on his firearm, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed in a brief but intense moment of concentration. "You go around that way," he replied, gesturing to the left. "I'll take this side. One of us will have to distract it from whatever it's got up that tree. The other will shoot."

Dean nodded. "You distract it."

Sam stared at him. "Why do _I _have to distract it?!"

* * *

Dean smiled roguishly at him.

Ivy kept breathing steadily, clearing her mind and keeping her body relaxed but ready to strike. Tensing up while sniping was never a good idea; she'd learned that the hard way many years ago. But it seemed like the blasted thing could read her mind. It stayed away from her line of sight, only crossing it with an insignificant paw or swipe of its tail. Not enough to get it down. She couldn't shoot to injure.

She licked her lips and shook her head quickly to clear her mind. _No negativity,_ she reminded herself. _Patience. _

"Hey! Hey, you!"

Ivy was startled by the male voice that shattered the stillness. She regained her composure in a heartbeat, but it was no good. Her shotgun tumbled out of her hands to the forest floor.

"_Shit_!" Ivy spat.

The dire-cougar's attention had been so focused on her that it barely registered the intrusion. It instead clued in that its primary prey was momentarily distracted. It crouched and growled in triumph.

Ivy didn't know how she managed to do it, but her back was suddenly pressed firmly against the tree trunk and she was grasping for branches to pull herself higher into the tree. She knew it was no use. She was done for.

The blast of a shotgun exploded in the clearing, and the dire-cougar's fixation on Ivy was severed. Roaring, it whirled around to face this new intruder.

Ivy's entire body, tense with the bizarre combination of fear and hunter's instinct, suddenly collapsed against the tree trunk. Her breathing was irregular, and she could feel her heart racing in her chest, her blood pounding in her ears. A searing pain shot through her forehead from temple to temple; she squeezed her eyes shut to fight against the pain.

"Dean! There's somebody in this tree!"

"Don't worry, Sammy, I've got this thing in the bag. _Come at me, you fugly mofo_!"

More shotgun blasts, deafening and rattling, echoed through the clearing. Ivy pressed the bases of her palms into her eyes, crying out against the pain. But the horror movie playing on the insides of her eyelids wouldn't go away, no matter what she did.

Darkness, except for the flickering, eerie light of fire and candles. A man chained to a stone wall, his torso lacerated with strange symbols. The stench of blood. A high-pitched cackle.

She fell.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Good thing you caught her, Sammy."

"It had her right up that tree. I didn't even see her."

"Neither did I, dude. Don't beat yourself up over it."

"We could've gotten her killed."

"Sammy…"

The strange girl who fell out of the tree groaned. "Stop…stop shouting," she mumbled, shaking her head.

Dean and Sam exchanged a puzzled glance. They weren't shouting. What also puzzled them was her voice. There was a strange lilt to it, an accent that most definitely did not come from any part of America.

"Hey," Sam said gently, dropping his voice to a murmur. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I…I think so," she replied. She slowly opened her eyes and blinked several times.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Sam asked, pointing to the sky.

"One." She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. "What happened?"

"Don't worry about anything," Dean said. "We got that hellcat that had you up the tree. It's taken care of."

"Good…" She sighed and opened her eyes again, fixing them with a perturbed look. "Where the hell did you come from?"

Sam and Dean looked at each other. "Well, uh," Sam started.

"We were just…" Dean's voice trailed off and he coughed.

The girl sat up slowly, flexing her limbs cautiously and brushing moss, dirt, and pine needless of her jacket. She raked her hands through her hair, pulling it away from her face which – both brothers were relieved to see – was finally regaining some colour.

She cleared her throat and rubbed her eyes before surveying the clearing. The charred, smoking remains of the dire-cougar lay where Dean had shot it down across the clearing. She bit her lip and exhaled, rubbing her left temple. Sam offered her a hand up, and she accepted, smiling her thanks and straightening out her clothes once she was steady on her feet.

"I'm Ivy, Ivy Griffin," she said. Dean couldn't get past that strange musical intonation in her voice. It sounded familiar to his ears, but he couldn't place it. He and Sam exchanged a brief glance before responding.

"Dean."

"Sam."

She was scanning the ground quickly, but upon hearing their names stopped and looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "Ah, the Winchesters." She averted her gaze back to the ground, and almost immediately found what she was looking for. Ivy dropped to one knee and took a hold of the shotgun that lay between two of the tree's roots.

Dean was immediately on guard. "How do you know us?" he demanded, his eyes narrowing slightly and his jaw setting.

Ivy looked up from inspecting her shotgun, cocking her head to one side. "As if you lads were anonymous among hunters," she said flatly.

The brothers were flabbergasted. "Say what?" Dean sputtered. "You're a…a hunter? What the hell kind of game were you playing up in that tree, then?"

"Of course I'm a hunter. What else would I be doing up a tree with a sawed-off full of iron bullets laced with rock salt and baby tears?" Ivy retorted, rising to both feet again. Her voice was a bit sharper, the lilt more pronounced. "I was just about to blast that dire-cougar when you pair showed up."

Dean frowned at her. "Forgive me," he said tersely, "but it didn't seem like you had it under control." He didn't like how this was playing out with this girl. _You don't leave her stranded out here, and this is the thanks you get. _

"Dean," Sam interjected, a note of caution in his voice.

"It's fine," Ivy reassured him. She turned to Dean. "You ought to be a little more careful on the hunt."

"Oh? What's that supposed to mean, sister?"

"It means, you nearly got me killed! Who sent you out here in the first place?"

"That's none of your business!"

"You're on _my _turf!"

Sam stepped in between them before the situation could escalate. "Look, you two," he said, "we're all a bit…tense…so let's just back down and cool off, okay?"

"Sounds fine to me," Dean said with a sardonic tone in his voice, his jade-green eyes flashing. He turned on his heel and started striding back across the clearing. "Come on, Sammy."

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. He turned back to Ivy, who was poker-faced as she removed the shots from her gun. "Listen," Sam said hastily, "he's not so bad, really. Just…" He stopped mid-sentence. "What I mean to say is," he began again, "I'm sorry for all this. I really am."

Ivy blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. "It's alright," she said, her voice much softer now. "It's been a long day."

"Sam!"

Sam let loose an exasperated sound and called out after Dean's retreating back. "Just a sec Dean!" He turned back to Ivy. "We kind of just got here…didn't haven time to check into a motel or anything. Could tell us where it is?"

Ivy smirked. "You drove in through Spruce Street off the highway, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You basically drove through town. There's no motel here."

* * *

"How can a town _not _have a motel?!" Dean exploded. He stomped through the underbrush, viciously hacking aside stray foliage with the barrel of his shotgun. This was definitely not his day.

"At least none that isn't three hours out in any given direction," Sam corrected, trying to inject a soothing note into his voice.

Ivy was walking ahead of them, but she was keeping one ear on the forest sounds and the other on the brothers' conversation. She rolled her eyes at the pissed-off sounding grunt Dean replied with.

"Oh, don't tell me you'd rather sleep in the car out here," Sam said.

"Never said that," Dean retorted.

They fell into silence for a few minutes, trailing behind Ivy. Dean regarded her from behind, trying to sort her out before she had a chance to do the same to him. Her about-face attitude grated against his nerves, but at least physically she was okay. _More than okay, actually,_ he decided. She wasn't tall at all, but her legs and rear end looked pretty good in the form-fitting grey jeans she wore tucked into her knee-high black boots. The black tank top she had on under her leather jacket was cut _just_ low enough in front in a V-neck to show off her forward-facing assets. Her hair was a dark shade of auburn, and she wore it pulled back from her face in a messy knot. She wasn't death-white, but her skin was pale with just a hint of colour in her cheeks, and her body was clearly fit and conditioned. The way she'd held her shotgun and now, the way she carried it – in what looked to Dean like a custom-made back holster – told him that it was an extension of her body; it told him she'd known how to use one since an early age.

And then there was that voice of hers. He was still trying to place that strange accent.

They reached the edge of the woods where the brothers had parked their Impala. After driving through the minute village that was Pine Valley, they had taken the narrow two-lane road up the mountain and had turned off onto the gravel one that they'd parked on.

There was no other vehicle in sight.

"How'd you get up here?" Dean asked.

"I walked," Ivy replied.

Dean stared at her. "It's six miles away!"

Ivy raised her eyebrow again at him. That was starting to bug Dean – a lot. "You're so easy to take the piss out of," she laughed, crossing the gravel road and disappearing down a narrow dirt path on the other side. In a moment they heard the deep purr of an engine, and she emerged from the shelter of the trees in a black Cadillac. She stopped by the brothers and leaned out the window.

"Just follow me down," she said. "Like I said, there's no motel in town, but I think I know a place where you can stay."

* * *

"Looks like rain," Sam mused, staring at the sky from the passenger seat of the Impala. The sky was overcast and in the distant east, angry-looking clouds were looming.

"You don't say," Dean grunted. "Who the hell drives a '67 deVille in the middle of nowhere?"

"I'm pretty sure some people say the same about a '67 Impala," Sam replied wryly. Dean gave him a dark sidelong glare.

The drive passed by fairly quickly and soon they were back on Spruce Street. Dean and Sam noted, with some amusement, that almost everyone who was still out stopped to wave at Ivy as she drove by.

"I'm still getting over the fact that they've got sidewalks," Dean said. "Strangest little town I've ever seen, and God knows how many we've gone through by now."

"Stop whining, jerk."

"Make me, bitch."

They drove straight through the town proper and turned off Spruce Street onto a smaller road. There weren't that many houses in the actual area; the ones that were there were small and situated in clusters on side-streets. The Winchesters figured that most people in Pine Valley lived farther out in the surrounding woods. Personally, Dean couldn't see why anyone would want to do that, especially with possessed mountain cats wandering around.

They drove right out of the actual town and continued ten more minutes into the woods. It was getting dark, but Dean could make out a bridge up ahead. They crossed it, and the brothers looked out their windows on either side. There was a long drop into a canyon below, which had a river running through it at the bottom.

"Charming," Dean remarked.

Five more minutes of driving, and they pulled out of the woods into a large clearing with three buildings. An old-fashioned log cabin stood in the middle, flanked by what looked like a barn on one side and a detached garage on the other. The garage was well-lit and the doors were open; inside, there was a dark blue Dodge Ram and what looked like a couple of motorcycles under canvas tarps. The Ram's doors were open and the hood was up; Dean could make out the shape of somebody working underneath it.

Ivy pulled into the garage next to the Ram and got out. Dean idled the Impala, watching as Ivy crouched down next to the Ram to have a word with whoever was underneath. A moment later, she straightened up and motioned for them to park next to the deVille.

They exited the car, and Ivy's companion under the Ram scooted out and got to her feet.

"Dean, Sam," Ivy said, "this is Charlie Griffin, my cousin. Char, the Winchesters."

"Wasn't aware you were coming into town," Charlie said, her voice lilting in the same way as Ivy's. She grinned wryly, wiping her hands off on a jaycloth. She was taller than Ivy, with blonde hair pulled away from her face in a long ponytail and paler skin than her cousin's, with a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her faded blue jeans were torn and streaked with engine grease in several places, and her grey T-shirt had seen better days in the garage for sure.

Sam frowned and Dean went on the offensive immediately. "Sending out a news bulletin isn't the way we normally work," he snapped.

"Whoa, there," Charlie laughed, holding up her hands in surrender fashion. "All I'm saying is that we usually have a heads up on other hunters strolling into our turf."

"_Your _turf?" Sam repeated. There was that phrase again.

Charlie nodded. Ivy, meanwhile, removed her back-holster and opened the trunk of her car.

"We're permanent-residence hunters," Charlie explained, tossing her jaycloth aside and stretching her back. "We do all our hunting out of this place."

"Around here, we've got your everyday, run-of-the-mill forest-types," Ivy added.

"And some of your not-so-ordinary ones," Charlie said without missing a bet. "How'd that dire-cougar turn out, by the way?"

"We got it," Dean said.

Charlie and Ivy both cast dark looks at him.

"What?" he exclaimed. "It's the truth. That thing had Ivy up a tree. We kind of saved her ass."

"You call nearly getting me killed 'saving my ass'?" Ivy demanded.

Charlie's grey-blue eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'nearly getting you killed'?"

"They came in, guns blazing. I lost my focus."

Charlie fixed Dean with a death glare. "You made her lose focus," she said angrily, "while she was hunting a _dire-cougar_?"

"To be fair," Sam cut in hastily, "we didn't know she was there."

Charlie pursed her lips, but she silently acquiesced. After a moment she said, "Ivy tells me you boys are going to be needing a place to stay for a bit?"

"That's right," Sam confirmed before Dean could get a word in edgewise on the subject of lodgings.

"We've got room up here," Charlie said. "You're welcome to stay here with us as long as you need to."

Sam smiled his thanks, but Dean was still steely-eyed. He didn't like the undercurrents of aggression and hostility that were running through this pair. Frankly, he didn't feel too welcome at all, but he resigned himself quickly to their fate and voiced his thanks – albeit, slightly begrudgingly.

Charlie nodded. "Well, then," she said briskly. "If you're all ready, then, I guess we can go up to the house now. I'm done here for the night. Ivy?"

"Yeah." Ivy closed her trunk and let her hair down. Shaking it out, she added, "That storm we've been expecting is coming."

Charlie raised her eyebrows. "They've been forecasting this storm for a week now," she explained. "Apparently it's going to be huge. Hope you guys brought an ark," she added jokingly.

"Noah was told humans would only need an ark that one time."

All four hunters whirled around to face the garage door. Ivy and Charlie stood in defensive positions – Ivy had pulled a knife from the sheath she wore under her shirt at the small of her back, and Charlie had grabbed hers out of her boot.

"Cas?" Dean exclaimed. "What the hell is wrong with your phone this time? I told you to call me when you came in."

"The voice told me I was out of minutes."

"What the _hell _is going on here?" Charlie fumed.

"Ivy, Charlie," Sam said, "this is Castiel."

"We're playing hostess to the Winchesters _and _a freakin' angel now, too?" Charlie demanded.

Castiel regarded her quizzically. "I don't understand your anger," he mused. Charlie fixed him with what Dean and Sam could already identify as the trademark Griffin angry-face.

Ivy, on the other hand, had relaxed and was now looking intently at Castiel. Castiel, feeling her gaze upon him, turned to her. They stared into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity.

"Ivy?" Charlie quipped.

"It's cool," Ivy said. "Come on. Let's get inside…Castiel has something important to tell us."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

They went up to the house quietly, with Dean and Ivy tailing behind. Charlie held the door open for Sam and Cas, and looked at Ivy, who nodded. Charlie disappeared into the house, leaving Dean and Ivy on the porch.

"Dean."

He looked at her, mildly surprised. "Yeah?"

"I'm really sorry for us making you feel uncomfortable," she said, biting her lip.

"Charlie and I…we're really territorial. This whole town is."

Now it was Dean's turn to raise an eyebrow. "And your point is..?"

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Ivy raked her hands through her hair. "I'm not sure," she confessed sheepishly. "I just want you to know it's nothing personal. Around these parts, you kind of have to earn your stripes with everyone." She frowned. "I should know…anyway. Let's get inside. The rain'll start any minute now."

Cas was set to hold court in the living room when Dean and Ivy made it inside. Sure enough, the rain had arrived: it was already pelting against the window panes. Charlie had stoked the fire and it was roaring on the hearth, and Ivy made her way over to an impressively-carved cabinet across the room. The clink of heavy-bottomed whiskey tumblers declared the purpose of the cabinet.

"Anyone want something?" she asked.

"No thanks, girl," Charlie said.

Sam shook his head.

"What have you got?" Dean inquired.

"Take your pick." Ivy strode over to an armchair near the fire and sank into it, a tumbler of whiskey in hand.

Castiel looked at Dean in a disapproving manner as the older Winchester made his way over to the Griffins' well-stocked liquor cabinet. "We have urgent business to attend to," the Angel said, his voice edgy.

"Let the man have a drink," Charlie quipped, twirling a lock of hair around her finger absentmindedly. She was lounging in a chair similar to Ivy's, her long legs slung over one of the arms.

Castiel huffed impatiently but waited until Dean was seated on the couch next to Sam before he spoke again. This time, though, he directed his question to the girls. "You've been having some trouble with the dire-creatures lately, haven't you?" he asked bluntly.

Charlie and Ivy exchanged a look before Charlie replied. "Yeah," she said. "It's still a bit early on in the season, but we've had to hunt down a couple already. The dire-cougar today was number five."

Ivy nodded in agreement. "We normally don't have to go after any dire-creature until just before summer," she added. "Throughout springtime we're usually keeping the Fey in line."

Dean's interest was immediately piqued. The Fey – he and Sam had handled those before; Dean himself was once abducted by them.

Charlie was staring at him intently, he realised suddenly. Immediately he felt on-edge, and he tried to shake it off.

"I thought they didn't really run around much over here," he said, referring to the Fey.

"Well, there was Elwood," Sam said.

"Yeah, but think about it, Sam," Dean argued. "Out of all this time that we've been hunting, we've only encountered them a few times…I mean, they usually just stick to their home turf in Ireland and Scotland, don't they?"

Ivy shook her head. "Not always. Some of the Gentry made it across the Atlantic, as you know already. But just because you don't encounter them on your hunts doesn't mean they don't run wild here in America."

Cas nodded in agreement. "You two would know better than anyone," he said mysteriously.

Charlie cast her narrow-eyed stare on him, her brow soon knitting in a frown. She said nothing, however, and looked away soon after.

Ivy swirled the whiskey in her tumbler, staring into it. The firelight pierced the liquid through the glass, making it glow. She looked up after a moment. "So, Castiel," she said, "what is it about the Fey that have you sending other hunters to our territory?"

"Look, sister," Dean snapped before Cas could respond, "there's no such thing as 'territory' between hunters. You might have your own specialties and we might have ours, but last time I checked nobody has an actual geographic claim to any of them."

"We do," Charlie practically snarled. "Pine Valley is _our _responsibility."

"You two have got to be the weirdest – " Dean began.

Charlie cut him off. "_Weirdest_? What about yourself? Did you think a freakin' _squirrel _had that dire cougar's attention?!"

"How the hell do you even – "

Castiel frowned and raised his hands. Making the universal hand motion for "shut up," he smiled a small, satisfied smile as Charlie and Dean suddenly found themselves voiceless, their mouths gaping and moving like those of fish.

"That's better," he said.

Ivy and Sam exchanged a wry grin.

"The veil here is very thin," Cas began, "but it's even thinner now. The openings of the various pathways to Hell have weakened the veil between worlds."

"What does that mean, exactly?" Sam wanted to know.

"It means," Cas said gravely, "that the creatures and beings who are normally confined to the Fey-World except on certain days of the year can pass through more easily at their leisure."

Ivy set her glass on the small table beside her armchair and leaned forward. "The veil between worlds separates our world from the Fey-World," she explained. "Very few people have been across the veil; those who have crossed it can now see through it. But like Castiel said, it normally can only be crossed at certain times of the year – at the Solstices and the Equinoxes." She looked at Cas, worry furrowing her brow. "We knew already that the veil was weakened, but we didn't fully comprehend what that could mean for us."

Cas gave her a somewhat compassionate look. "That is understandable," he reassured her. "Even you could not know the extent of this. The veil still holds, though, but barely."

"Yeah, you said that they're passing through freely now?" Sam asked Castiel.

"Yes." The Angel's voice was grave. "The weakening of the veil has resulted in the weakening of the magic that binds the Fey to their world and keeps them out of ours. And now, some of them are angry."

He snapped his finger suddenly, and Dean and Charlie sputtered and coughed their voices back into commission.

"So what you're saying," Dean said, somewhat hoarsely, "is that we've got a whole bunch of faeries running around Pine Valley?"

"That's very simplistic of you, Dean, but yes," Cas confirmed. "And it's only going to get worse."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

At that moment, a massive black dog padded into the room from the shadows of the hallway.

"Cúchulainn! There you are, boy!" Charlie cooed, sitting up in her chair. The dog went to her for a welcoming scratch behind the ear, and then went to Ivy for the same before settling down on the carpet between the two girls. Standing on all fours, his head cleared the top of their armchairs easily; his height, combined with his shaggy black coat and imperious gaze, denoted him as a dog to be reckoned with.

Sam found the scene endearing; he'd always wanted a dog of his own and, for two weeks one time, had been lucky enough to have one as a companion while he was living on his own. He'd never seen a dog so big in his life and wondered if it was somehow part elephant.

Dean and Cas, however, recoiled from the dog with visible looks of horror and detestation, respectively, on their faces.

"What," Cas nearly snarled, "is _that _doing in here?"

"Freakin' hell!" was all Dean could say.

Sam stared at them, clearly lost, but Ivy and Charlie were immediately on the defense.

"He's not an enemy, Castiel," Charlie said tersely.

"He's one of _them,_" Cas shot back.

The dog rose to his feet, its ears laid back flat against his head and his teeth slightly bared.

"Cúchulainn," Ivy said gently. The dog met her gaze and backed down into a sitting position. But he kept his gaze on Cas and Dean.

"Can somebody please tell me what's wrong with having an Irish Wolfhound?" Sam asked.

Charlie grinned ruefully. "He's not really a dog," she began mysteriously.

"He's a freakin'…demon poodle dog thing!" Dean sputtered. His time in the faerie world had given him the ability to see through the mortal-world disguises the Fey used when they were on this side of the veil.

Charlie was visibly irritated by Dean's classification, but Cas beat her to the punch. "It's a _púca, _Dean, not a poodle."

"And even if he was a real dog," Charlie snapped, "he would _most certainly not _be a poodle."

"Whatever. Why they hell do you have one of them as a pet?" Dean demanded.

"Cúchulainn is not exactly a pet," Ivy said. "He's a part of our family. And not in some creepy weird pet-lover way, either - he's one of the Gentry that crossed over from Ireland. He came with our great-great grandfather."

Cas looked at her incredulously. "He managed to..._tame _a member of the Fey?"

"Not exactly tame. There's a bit of an issue of a debt that needs to be repaid. But he's not bound," Charlie explained. "He chooses to remain with us of his will."

"I am _really _confused," Sam bleated.

"I'll explain it to you later, short bus," Charlie replied without missing a beat. She turned her attention back to Cas, ignoring Sam's injured, yet indignant, expression. "So what are you proposing? You're all obviously here to hunt, but we're here to protect this town."

Cas fixed her with a steady, steely gaze. "This requires the skills of more than just you two girls," he said, "and possibly even more than the four of you possess altogether. We might need divine intervention."

"Dude, we've tried that whole divine intervention thing numerous times before, and it hasn't exactly worked out yet," Dean said dryly.

"Let him talk, Dean," Sam wheedled.

"Yeah, shut up," Charlie added.

"This is clearly a dire situation, and you are all clearly not up to discussing it tonight," Cas sighed, the exasperation in his voice betraying his impatience and resignation. "I'll be back in the morning."

And he was gone.

* * *

Dean pulled off his shirt and sat down on the edge of his bed, raking his hands through his hair. The storm had died down somewhat but the rain continued to come down in sheets; staring out the window, he could barely make out the trees surrounding the property.

_What a night, _he thought to himself, getting up and turning down the sheets. Indeed, what a day it had been. A stranger pair of hunters he'd never met, a stranger hunt he'd never been on – and that was saying a lot, considering what he and Sam had been through. But aside from the small spats that erupted between the Griffins and the Winchesters so far, he held some respect for the girls. They obviously had a lot more on their plates than he initially assumed, and to be the guardians of an entire town was nothing to belittle. In truth, he felt somewhat guilty for giving them, especially Ivy, such a hard time about everything.

"Whatever," he said aloud to himself as he unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans.

There were bigger things to worry about, and most of them could wait until tomorrow.

* * *

"What do you think of them?"

Ivy caught Charlie's eye in the bathroom mirror, one delicate eyebrow arched quizzically. Her chestnut hair hung loose over her shoulder as she brushed it out.

"What do you think of the Stooges?" Charlie repeated, laughing. "I must say, that Angel really is a piece of work."

Ivy rolled her eyes, but shared her cousin's amusement with a wry grin. "Well, he normally doesn't interact with us mere mortals," she said. "His people skills need a bit of DW-40."

"We've got plenty of that," Charlie chortled. She pushed her hair back away from her face with a headband and started applying her face cleanser. "And Sam and Dean – what d'ya reckon about those two?"

Ivy rolled her eyes. "Charlie," she said simply in a warning tone as her cousin washed off her face.

"What?" Charlie asked, faking innocence and batting her eyelashes. She patted her face dry and suddenly, over the edge of her towel, her eyes widened and her tone took on a teasing note. "Oh my goodness! You like one of them, don't you?"

"I do not." Ivy deftly plaited her hair into a braid and grabbed her toothbrush. Charlie laughed when Ivy squeezed too much toothpaste onto the bristles: her level-headed cousin was barely managing to remain cool, calm, and collected.

Ivy turned out the lights and snuggled down into her nest of quilts and pillows. Evidently, it wasn't just the creatures that were unseasonable this year: October in Pine Valley had taken on an early chill. Even though they were only halfway through the month, Ivy could feel winter closing in already.

Out in the hallway, Cúchulainn had taken up his normal guarding position between the girls' rooms. He was lying down now, an enormous silhouette against the gentle orange glow of the hallway light. From her bed, Ivy could see his ears twitching alertly even as he snoozed.

"Good night, sweetie." Charlie's voice drifted across the hallway, sleepy and content.

"Sleep well." Ivy curled up into a ball under her covers and was soon fast asleep.

* * *

Sam shot up in his bed immediately; a scream had shattered through his sleep. He hit the ground running, handgun at the ready as he raced up to the third floor where Ivy and Charlie slept. The light on the landing was already turned on.

Dean was right on his heels, his hunting knife brandished and his entire body ready to spring into action against whatever possible intruder was inside with him. They made it to the landing and were granted admittance by Cúchulainn, whose agitated whining made it clear that something was amiss.

A light was turned on in one of the rooms as well; upon entering they realised it was Ivy who had screamed. Charlie was sitting on the bed, holding her sobbing cousin and trying to soothe her.

"What happened?" Sam asked, lowering his gun.

"She had a nightmare," Charlie explained in a hushed voice. "She gets a lot of those."

Dean's memory flashed back to that afternoon in the clearing, when they had found Ivy unconscious. He was jerked back to the present by Ivy's sobs. Even when muffled by Charlie's shoulder, they cut into him like a knife. She seemed inconsolable and completely oblivious to her surroundings. What kind of horror movie in her head could make her so distressed?

He and Sam exchanged extremely worried glances.

"Is there anything we can do?" Sam wanted to know, setting the gun on the dresser.

"In the study at the end of the hall, there's a cabinet. The key is in Ivy's jewellery box. Grab one of the black bottles on the left," Charlie instructed. She turned her attention back to Ivy. "Shh, sweetie, you're alright. Hey, everything's okay. Come on now."

Sam returned with a small black bottle. "What is this?"

"A sleeping potion," Charlie said with a dry smile as he deposited the bottle into her open palm. "Valerian, mostly, with some lavender and chamomile for good measure."

"That sounds pretty intense," Dean mused.

"It's the only thing that will soothe her enough to let her sleep through the rest of the night." Charlie opened the bottle and handed it to Ivy, who downed it like a shot of Jack.

Once Ivy was tucked safely back into bed and light was turned out, the three hunters exited quietly.

"What the hell is going on?" Dean demanded on the landing.

"Excuse me?" Charlie flared.

Dean counted on his fingers. "There are freakin' faeries running around everywhere, including in your house. Your cousin has nightmares so bad she needs a drink right out of Grimm to get her back to sleep. The two of you have this really bad habit of making me feel like you're inside my head." He paused. "Yeah, that's about it. Care to explain?"

"Dean," Sam interjected, "it's two in the morning. Surely you can be patient enough to wait until a more decent hour." He turned to Charlie. "Sleep well," he said quietly before heading back downstairs.

Dean backed down begrudgingly and made a move to follow Sam as Charlie returned to her room. But before he could even step onto the stairs, Cúchulainn blocked his way.

"Oh, come on," Dean grumbled. The creature gave him an imploring look and turned his head towards Ivy's room.

"You have _got _to be kidding me."

Evidently, the dog was not kidding him at all. Dean found himself practically herded into Ivy's room towards another large, squashy armchair.

"Dude, I'm half-naked here."

The animal left and swiftly returned with Dean's T-shirt in its mouth, which it promptly deposited on the floor in front of Dean's feet with a wag of its tail.

"Very funny. Good night." Dean settled into the chair. _Goddammit._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Ivy woke to a ray of sunshine falling across her face and the strangest feeling that she wasn't alone in her room. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and felt her heart stop when she saw Dean, now fully dressed, sitting in her reading chair with a book open on his knee and a tired frown on his face.

"Good morning," he said, raising his gaze to meet hers. "How did that sleeping potion work out for you?"

Ivy stared at him, dumbfounded and embarrassed as she scrambled to cover herself with her quilt. Not that there was anything indecent about how she was dressed: she was, in fact, totally covered by a ratty Iron Maiden shirt several sizes too big. Dean, in fact, had noticed it while she was asleep, and found himself approving on her taste in music as well as her taste in cars.

Charlie breezed in at that moment, her mood as sunny as the day outside. "Hey, did you sleep well? I hope your nightmare didn't – " She trailed off in shock when she saw Dean there. "What are you doing in here?" she demanded, voicing the question Ivy was still unable to ask.

"Before you try kicking my ass down those stairs, your house-faerie dog-thing made me stay last night." Dean shut the book and rose to his feet. "Now that you are here to save the day, I will be downstairs."

* * *

Charlie trudged across the muddy front yard towards the garage, already annoyed even thought it wasn't even ten o'clock yet. Life for the Griffin cousins was already stressful enough with the responsibility laid upon them both by their family legacy, not to mention their own personal problems. But after not even a day of dealing with the Winchesters and their guardian angel, Charlie felt as if her last intact nerve was fraying.

She opened up the garage and nearly decked Cas, who appeared from out of nowhere in front of her. A shower of expletives rained down on the Angel before Charlie regained her composure enough to speak.

"What the _hell_ is your problem?" she fumed, her heart still racing.

"I don't understand," Castiel said.

Charlie stomped past him to get to her tools. She didn't have time to try painting a picture for an Angel. Her Ram was still in need of one last tune-up under the hood after her last trip out in it, and then one of the bikes needed major work. Besides, working in the garage helped relax her.

"Charlie, you can't expect to succeed if you do this alone," Castiel said.

Wrench in hand, Charlie turned halfway around to glare at him. "Don't tell me what I can and can't do," she retorted, brandishing the tool as if threating to bludgeon him if he didn't back down. "Ivy and I have been taking care of Pine Valley for three years on our own. Just as our family has done ever since we came here."

"I am only trying to guide you," Cas insisted. "I cannot make you do anything you do not want to do. But there is already too much at stake for you to not accept help."

Charlie slumped against the tailgate of her Ram, the weight of all the responsibility suddenly like an anvil on her shoulders. Castiel stood in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders, squaring them and making her look at him.

"Nobody is criticising you and Ivy," he said gently. "But you know just as well as I do that both of you are in danger, especially your cousin. It won't be long now before they realise what you are capable of doing."

* * *

"So what else do you do around here?" Sam asked. "Besides hunting and saving the town, I mean."

Charlie stretched and leaned against the front end of her Ram, wiping off her hands on a jaycloth. "We own the only garage in town. Brings in some extra cash."

"Not that we need it," Ivy quipped from under her deVille.

Charlie laughed in agreement. "We also pick up a couple of shifts here and there at the grocery and diner," she continued, "just to stay busy when hunting's slow. That's normally in winter when the veil is hardest to penetrate. Less Fey and their pets running around."

Dean was rather impressed, and perhaps even slightly jealous. They Griffin cousins had clearly been able to carve out a life for themselves that was relatively normal; it was something he'd tried but couldn't accomplish. Before any feelings of regret or sadness could rise up in earnest, though, he shrugged off the thought and tuned back to his Impala.

"So if you run the town's only garage," Sam began, "why is it that you're here on a Wednesday?"

"Well, it's not just us working there," Charlie replied. "Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Skipper Delahunty and Jamie O'Haurraughton take over so we can have a midweek weekend."

"Normally there's just one of us there anyway," Ivy added, "because of the hunting and all."

"Nice," Dean said noncommittally.

There was a question on his mind, though, and that question had been hanging heavily in the air ever since the previous night. "Why is it that you're able to live here, hunting as you do, without getting any unwanted tension?" he asked after a while. "I mean, how can people not notice?"

Ivy pushed herself out from under her car momentarily. She and Charlie exchanged one of their long looks, as if somehow they could discuss what to say without speaking out loud. Finally, she slid back underneath the car and replied, "It's a bit of a long story. Can your curiosity hold over 'til lunch?"

"Sure," Sam said quickly before Dean could huff and puff. He knew Dean was impatient to know what the hell was going on in Pine Valley, but his intuition told him that the girls weren't going to give into any pressure from either Winchester.

Castiel had been hovering around the garage, exploring things that piqued his interest from time to time. Occasionally he could hover around an open hood and an inquisitive hand would be shooed away from the motors.

Charlie slid underneath her truck and started tinkering around. Soon the only sound coming out from under the Ram was Charlie's frustrated grumbling punctuated by emphatic cursing.

"I don't think I'll ever understand why humans feel the need to swear on sexual intercourse and bodily functions," Cas murmured. "Are they really more sacred to you than anything else?"

"_What_?!" Ivy exclaimed.

Dean and Sam laughed in unison. It had taken them a while to get used to the Angel's observations about mankind, usually expressed in a way that belied his confusion without being immediately understood. That is to say, Castiel's way of explaining things didn't really explain anything.

"Cas has this…unique way of observing us," Sam said with a smile. "Just smile and nod when you don't get it."

"I resent that, Sam," Cas wheedled. "I try to understand humans and I just end up more confused. You don't help, either."

"Better get used to having him around," Dean said, passing by Ivy on his way to the sink. Instinctively, he nudged her toe with his as he passed.

Ivy, still under the car, froze for a split second as she felt Dean's boot tap hers. She shrugged it off quickly and tightened the last bolt she was securing before sliding out from under the car. "There we go," she said to nobody in particular.

"Fixed it?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah, should turn fine now." Ivy joined Dean at the sink to wash off her grease-covered hands. She looked over her shoulder at Charlie. "And yourself?"

"Argh. There's not enough oil reaching the pistons," Charlie growled, completely oblivious to Castiel lurking around the top of her hood. "I need somebody to loosen up the hose."

"Oh, I can get that," Cas offered. Before anyone could stop him, he reached in and pulled.

Charlie's scream split the air and everyone froze in place as she shot out from underneath the truck. They all burst into peals of laughter: her face and chest were covered in engine grease.

"Oh my God," Ivy wheezed, grabbing onto Dean's arm as she bent nearly double with laughter. "Oh my God."

"I said 'loosen' _not _'disconnect'!" Charlie fumed, getting to her feet and stalking over to the cabinet where the garage cloths and towels were kept.

"I was trying to help," Cas pleaded.

"Just…just go sit. Over there. In the corner." Charlie's voice was so sharp nobody bothered trying to question her. Even Castiel did as he was told, and retreated to a stool in the corner farthest from her.

* * *

Although the day had started off sunny, just before lunch the clouds rolled back in and a wind shook the leaves on the trees. Sam had disappeared into his room, presumably to do some reading, and Ivy was upstairs, while Castiel wandered about the property and Charlie cleaned herself up. Dean found himself hunting in vain for a clean, warm sweater, but all of his clothes were in need of a wash. For the umpteenth time since arriving at the Griffins' he found himself wishing a little bit more that he, too, could enjoy the comforts of home while hunting.

_Stop it,_ he told himself, kicking a shirt into his laundry pile a little harder than he intended. _You've got more freedom than most._

Ivy padded across his doorway with a laundry basket. She backtracked a couple of steps, having noticed Dean in his room with a pile of laundry.

"Want to add it?" she asked, holding out the basket.

"Thanks." Dean scooped up his clothes and dumped them into the basket, then took it from her. "Lead the way."

They trooped down to the basement, where Ivy gestured towards a washing machine in the corner. "Detergent's in the top shelf," she said, opening up the dryer and removing a load of sheets and towels. "How's your room? Everything to your liking?"

Dean found himself smiling at this unexpected side of his host. "It's great," he said, crouching to open the front-loader. "It feels like heaven compared to the motels I'm used to." He chucked the clothes in by the handful and straightened up. "I feel kind of bad though." The words were out of his mouth before he could think.

"Why?"

He frowned for a moment, kicking himself mentally. "Well, we're kind of…invading your space, aren't we?" he started. Trying to lighten the mood, he added, "If you want to get rid of us, we do have a tent."

"Don't be stupid." Ivy flicked a sheet out expertly and started folding it. "We wouldn't let you do that." She paused for a second, then said, "Like I said yesterday, I'm sorry if we're a bit hostile sometimes. We're totally fine with you staying here. And don't mind us when we're in a snit. We're Irish. Tempers and all that."

Dean laughed. "If you say so."

They went back upstairs after they finished the sheets. "Can I put these away for you?" Dean wanted to know.

"Right there in the cupboard," Ivy replied, pointing down the hall. "Just put the basket on the floor inside the cupboard. Thanks." She wandered off into the kitchen as Dean put the sheets and towels in the linen away.

"It gets cold suddenly, doesn't it?" he remarked, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later. "It was such a nice day outside earlier."

"Welcome to Pine Valley," Ivy responded, up on her tiptoes as she tried to grab a teakettle from a high shelf in the cupboard. Dean came up behind her to get it down and made his way over to the sink to fill it.

While the water boiled away on a hotplate next to the stove, Ivy started removing food from other cupboards and the fridge.

"Soup and sandwiches alright with you for lunch?" she asked.

"That sounds great." Dean hadn't realised how hungry he was until then.

* * *

The scene that greeted Sam when he came down half an hour later made him do a double take. Dean was standing at the kitchen island slicing cucumbers and peppers while Ivy stirred a giant pot on the stove. They were laughing, Ivy having just told some joke whose punch line Sam had missed.

It was weird to see Dean looking so at ease in a domestic setting, Sam realised. Of course, Dean had settled into the domestic life for a year, but that felt like a lifetime ago. What had happened between then and now had hardened Dean so much that sometimes Sam felt as if he no longer really knew his brother.

"_Hey there, good-lookin'. Whatcha got cookin'?_" Sam sang, somewhat off-key, to announce his arrival.

"Hey yourself," Ivy replied. "Potato-and-leek soup with sandwiches. Assemble your own; Dean's almost done with the fillings."

Sam was impressed. He grabbed two slices of bread and started piling.

Charlie came in soon after, barefoot and clad in a pair of yoga pants and a tank top, her blond hair hanging in damp waves around her face. "Smells great," she remarked, sniffing the air. She joined the brothers at the island and soon everyone was assembling a sandwich. They moved into the dining room and sat down together.

"If I recall correctly," Sam ventured after everyone had started eating, "you owe us a bit of a story."

"Oh, yeah," Charlie and Ivy said in unison.

"Well," Charlie continued, "where to begin, but the beginning? Ivy, would you do us the honour? You're so much better at storytelling."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Ivy delicately wiped her mouth on her napkin and began. "So you've noticed that Pine Valley isn't exactly the most normal place around. For starters, Charlie and I live here." She took a sip of water while the brothers chuckled. "I think we only have time for the abridged version," Ivy added apologetically. "There are way too many side stories here for this to be a one-shot telling."

"That's fine. It looks like we'll be here for a while yet anyway," Sam said.

Ivy smiled. "Well, once upon a time a man was born in County Kerry, Ireland. His name was Eoin Griffin. He was the oldest son of a wealthy farmer, which back then was a rarity especially since they were Catholic. But they were one of the few lucky ones to survive the Great Famine, and Eoin was born into a stable family. Shortly after the birth of how his first child, though, he got into trouble."

"With the law?" Dean asked.

"Nope. With the Faeries." Ivy took a sip of water before continuing. "His wife became extremely ill after their first son was born, and he became so desperate that he struck a deal with a leprechaun."

"Oh. Bet that ended well," Dean said sarcastically.

"Oh, but of course," Charlie chortled. "When he failed to keep his end of the deal, the leprechaun gave him two weeks to sort it."

"What did they ask for?" Sam wanted to know.

"They wanted the baby." Ivy's voice was grave. "He did what any father would do to protect his child. He did what he thought was best."

"In short, he upped and left for America," Charlie cut in. "He thought the Gentry didn't have power outside Ireland, especially in a big new city like New York. But he was wrong."

Ivy pressed on, "Eoin pissed them off so much that not only did they follow him, they plagued him. Their powers were weaker because the veil here was too thick, but they prevailed because previous generations of emigrants had brought their own share of Faerie troubles and continued to practice folk religion, especially in remote places."

"What were they going to do to him in Ireland if he didn't repay the leprechaun?" Dean asked.

"They were going to take the child and swap it with a changeling," Ivy said. "They would have had no problem there but they have to cross the veil to do that. And the veil was impenetrable here. Until Eoin heard of a place where it might open."

"How?" Dean asked.

Charlie said, "One of Eoin's friends, Tiernán Delahunty, told him about it. As the story goes, Tiernán had managed to get information from a Faerie of the whereabouts of a door between worlds. It was in a remote mountain location, where a few other Irish emigrant families had already settled. Their continued practice of Irish folk religion had strengthened their Fey."

Dean leaned back in his seat and exhaled slowly. "So let me guess," he said, "these guys opened up the veil and unleashed some PMSing Tinkerbells?"

"Pretty much," Ivy confirmed. "Eoin and Tiernán left New York City with their families to the mountain valley the Faerie had told him about, and found several others living there already. They had settled for two or three generations by the time Eoin and Tiernán arrived, and welcomed them. When they told the settlement that they knew how to solve the problem of the Fey, the community saw their chance to gain control over the Fey – something that had never been possible in Ireland."

Sam's brow was furrowed in deep thought. "Why would they think they could control the Fey here?" he inquired.

"They thought that because the Gentry needed them for a favour – to part the veil – they would be able to bind the Gentry into a bargain," Charlie explained. "They pretty much wanted to give the Fey a taste of their own medicine."

"But how did the Fey not know what was coming?" Dean asked.

Ivy got up to pour herself another cup of tea, collecting Sam's teacup as well on her way to the stove. "We never said they didn't know," she said. "On Samhain in 1879, they opened the veil. And the Faeries were waiting."

Suddenly, the searing pain that had burned through her head the day before in the glade erupted across her forehead. With a startled cry, she dropped the cups of tea and they shattered on the stone floor. She fell to her knees, pressing her hands into her eyes and crying out against the pain. Charlie was immediately on her feet.

"Ivy? Ivy, honey, what is it?" She knelt on the floor next to her cousin, a hand on her knee and concern darkening her face.

Ivy tried to speak, but she couldn't. It was the same vision – the same as in the glade and in the nightmare she had. The darkness, the cold light of dark candles; the stench of blood and sweat and dampened stone; the sound of a man in pain, the laughter that tore through the air.

"Charlie," she whimpered. "Charlie…"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Dean was pacing.

Sam had never seen his brother so agitated and so concerned about a girl, other than Lisa. If the situation weren't so grave, he would be taking a few digs at Dean over this uncharacteristic display of affection for somebody outside the family, especially a girl who seemed to be able to get under his skin in any way possible.

"I'm going to go out for a bit," Dean finally said. "This tension is killing me. What the hell is going on with these girls?" The words were sharp, but they were softened somewhat by the worry that hedged into his voice.

Charlie had whisked Ivy up to her room with some half-assed excuse about chronic migraines and needing a quiet rest. Neither Sam nor Dean was buying that explanation: Ivy was shaken nearly to tears by whatever happened inside her head. By the time the brothers made it upstairs to see if they could help, Ivy was out cold.

_Inside her head._

"Well, knock me over with a feather," Sam murmured.

"What?" Dean practically snapped.

"I think I know what's happening."

* * *

Ivy was back downstairs that evening, curled up on the sofa in the living room under a warm quilt and Cúchulainn on the floor beside her. The _púca _rested with his head across her lower legs, ears twitching alertly as he snoozed.

Sam entered the room quietly. "Hey, Ivy. Are you feeling better?" He sat down on the other end of the couch.

"Yeah, thanks," she replied, sitting up a bit on her end and arranging the quilt over her lap. "The headache's almost completely gone. What's up?"

Sam hesitated. He and Dean had debated somewhat fiercely over their course of action here. As soon as Sam realised what was happening with Ivy and as soon as he told Dean, a discussion the morality and ethics of prying so deeply into the Griffins' lives had erupted between them. Strangely enough, it had been Dean against the idea of bringing it up; Sam, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically persistent in getting the girls to put all the cards on the table once and for all.

"If we're here to help them, Dean," he'd stated, "we've got to know what's going on. Now."

Eventually, the older Winchester conceded – very reluctantly – and stalked out of the house, clearly with no destination in mind. In fact, he still wasn't back. Between the girls' unceasing secrecy and Dean's out-of-character behaviour, Sam could only take everything as justification for opening this particular door.

Sitting on the couch with Ivy now, though, Sam found himself second-guessing the brothers' decision to force the hand. _No turning back, _he decided as soon as the thought entered his head.

"Ivy," he began, "there are some really weird things happening around here. And I don't mean all the stuff with the faeries and the dire-cougars and or any of that stuff. I mean you and Charlie."

Ivy frowned, but gestured for him to continue.

"Your nightmares and your blackouts," Sam said. "The way you and Charlie look at each other whenever some delicate subject comes up, as if you can somehow communicate via telepathy. How Charlie knew about things that happened yesterday which she couldn't have known about. That sort of thing."

"Sam…" Strangely, Ivy's voice was somehow pleading.

Sam held firm. "I know I shouldn't be asking. It's your business; I get that you're reluctant to share especially if you're not exactly ready to tell us. But if Cas is right – if Dean and I are meant to help you – we don't have a choice. This situation looks like it can get out of hand at any second."

Ivy stared outside the window at the darkening sky for a long moment. Finally, she met his gaze.

"Alright."

* * *

Dean had spent an hour walking through the valley that, according to a quaint map of Pine Valley hanging in a reading room, was known in the area as Griffin's Clearing. The forest edge began some sixty yards from the house, but he avoided venturing anywhere near it. There was something odd about the feeling of the woods here, he'd decided – something so odd that even a hunter as seasoned as he found it unnatural.

At some point, his nature walk bored him nearly to tears; after all, there was only so much a guy could take of wildflowers and pretty scenery before he went up the wall. With Sam locked away in his room reading more, Charlie busying herself in the garage, Ivy sleeping off this latest distress, and Castiel completely MIA, Dean found it hard to sit still. Going back inside wasn't an option, clearly, and so he let Charlie know he'd be back after dinner and took the Impala out for a spin.

How Pine Valley had managed to survive the wrath of several families' worth of faeries was beyond Dean. Something major had happened, clearly – but what followed in the wake of that event had lasting repercussions that somehow ended up making Ivy and Charlie responsible for it, too.

"This place is messed up," Dean muttered, driving out of Griffin's Clearing and turning up onto Lough Lane. "Quaint, but seriously messed up."

He found himself a short while later at the diner he and Sam had gone into for breakfast the day before. His stomach rumbled at precisely that moment, so Dean pulled up and hopped out to grab some grub.

As far as small-town diners went, it was pretty standard: a greasy spoon, mom-and-pop joint that was cheap, fast, and out of the way. Dean slid into an empty booth towards the back of the diner as the waitress came over.

She was the mom-half of the duo that owned the place, an older woman with a motherly appearance and air. "What can I get for you, dear?" she asked cheerfully. Her nametag read, "Lucy," and he smiled up at her.

"A cheeseburger with fries and a milkshake," Dean responded, not even having to think about the order. It was always some variation of that in places like this.

"Vanilla, strawberry, chocolate?"

Ah, the big question. "Chocolate," he decided after a moment. "And could I grab a cup of coffee too?"

"This late in the evening?" Lucy chided, sticking her notepad into her apron pocket and her pen behind her ear.

"I plan on being up late," Dean said with a wry grin. As she smiled back and turned away the awful thought passed through Dean's head that maybe she'd interpreted the comment as some lame attempt at flirtation, but the pop-half of the proprietorship appeared out of a back room at that moment and wrapped his wife up in a bear hug behind the counter. _Phew, _he thought, settling down into his seat. The last thing he wanted was some mom-figure fling. Anywhere.

Lucy came back with a cup and a freshly-brewed pot of coffee. "You were in here yesterday, weren't you?" she said, setting the cup in front of Dean and pouring.

"Yeah, my brother and me," Dean said, taking his first sip.

She smiled. "Visiting family?"

"Um…not exactly," he said. "We're kind of on a road trip."

"A road trip that brought you all the way out here?" Lucy laughed. "Did your GPS break?"

Dean forced a laugh. "Yeah, something like that. We decided to stay a few days though; we like small towns."

"Well, then, welcome to our little town." She turned to go back to the counter, then swung back round to face him. "But where are you staying, then?"

_Awkward. _"With the…Griffin cousins. Charlie and Ivy?"

"I see." Lucy suddenly smiled brightly. "Lovely girls, they are. I suppose you met them at the Motors?"

_Lies are good. _"Yep."

His food arrived shortly and he tucked in, making quick work of the first half of his meal before slowing down and letting the events of the last two days turn over and over in his mind. There were so many weird things happening, so many questions running around in his brain.

And he was starting to feel an inexplicable sort of…_something _towards Ivy. That bothered him – quite a lot, actually, he decided as he pushed a stray fry around his plate with another, swirling ketchup into abstract patterns. It wasn't any kind of attraction, he quickly assured himself. No, it definitely wasn't that. It was more of a curiosity, an intrigue. She had appeared in his life as unexpectedly as any person could, and was suddenly one of the most dynamic presences in his life. He didn't know what to think of her.

Dean mentally kicked himself back to what was important: the hunt. Whatever this hunt turned out to be, he needed to be prepared. There were more lives involved in this particular case than he was used to. Sam, he knew how to work with, how to deal with. Obviously – they were brothers. And as much as he ragged on Castiel's feathery ass, the Angel was a great part of the team and also a friend – in a weird, short-bus-cousin kind of way. But Charlie and Ivy?

He growled quietly in frustration. _There they go again, racing through my brain. _Charlie was a powder keg waiting to explode – that was for sure. But even though he hadn't seen in her in action, Dean could tell that she was more than competent and confident enough for him not to worry about her.

Ivy, too, was clearly at ease on a hunt, but it was becoming evident that whatever was causing her nightmares and blackout was going to be a problem. He'd dealt with Sam during the Yellow-Eyed Demon days and that had been bad enough. Now, it appeared Ivy was having the same issues.

That was Sam's working theory, anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Sam heard the Impala's purr from the living room and went out on the porch to meet Dean.

"Hey," he greeted his brother. "How's the headspace?"

"More spacious. How's Ivy?"

"Better." Sam leaned against the porch railing and cleared his throat. "We had a good chat about stuff."

Dean immediately squashed the slight prickle of annoyance that twitched in his chest upon hearing that. _Damn Sam and his bedside manner, _he thought to himself before focusing on the real issue. "What's the verdict?" he asked, stretching his shoulders and burping. "Wow, that was a mighty burger."

Sam gave him a disgusted look. "That's real attractive," he said. "To answer your question though – we're in the clear on demon stuff."

"Well, that's good. At least we don't have to get back into that mess," Dean said.

"Agreed. But…" Sam's voice trailed off.

"But what?" Dean prodded.

"We're going to have to brush up on some curse breaking skills."

* * *

"What's this about a curse?"

Charlie threw a log onto the fire and prodded it into place with a poker. Straightening up, she put the poker back in its place on the rack next to the fireplace and counted backwards from ten in her head before facing him. "Good evening to you too," she tossed back, perhaps a bit more haughtily than she'd intended. "So I guess Sam told you everything?"

"About how your great-grand-whomever tore the veil asunder and had to make a pact with the Fey to fix things?" Dean clarified. "Yep. And how he tried to go ahead and break _that _pact, too, and ended up having a curse put on his entire family including his descendants for all eternity? Yep." He couldn't help but be somewhat judgemental. It was as if people never learned their lessons regarding this shit.

"So glad to know our family history is an open book to complete strangers." Charlie's voice dripped with sarcasm and loathing.

"Hey, sweetheart," Dean snapped, "if we're meant to help you, we have a right to know. It's not like we're going to put a bulletin out on you."

"We never asked for your help," Charlie snarled.

"So you keep saying," Dean retorted. "Well, guess what? We're here, and we're staying put until this is over. So deal with it!"

"Well, looks like I'll just have to do exactly that, huh," Charlie growled. "But let's get one thing straight. This is _our _house, not Casa Winchester. And you'd better not hurt her."

Dean was caught off guard. "Say what?" he demanded.

It suddenly seemed as if her sky-blue gaze was burning right into Dean's jade-green eyes.

_You know exactly what I mean._

* * *

Just when Sam thought he'd finally be able to settle down for the night, the argument began.

"Just because you can do it doesn't mean you can do it to me, you hear?"

"Better get used to it, Winchester! If you're sticking around, you get the full celebrity treatment!"

Sam bolted downstairs into the living room where he found Dean and Charlie facing off. The younger Winchester found himself quite amused: Dean in full rage was a frightening sight on any given day, but Charlie had the atmospheric advantage of being lit from behind by a crackling fire.

"You're insane!" Dean thundered. "What's your problem?"

"My _problem_?" Charlie sputtered. "You've been handed my family's history on a silver platter and you want to know what my _problem _is? Guess what, pretty boy? My problem is you waltzing in here after nearly killing my cousin, acting like the Winchester family is the only hunting family that matters."

"Don't you dare pass judgement on me, missy!"

"Try and _make _me!"

"What the hell is going on?" Sam demanded. He immediately initiated his mediator mode. "Look, it's getting late; don't you both think this is a bit inappropriate to be yelling at each other right now?"

"We're in the woods, Sammy. Nobody can hear us scream," Dean said tersely.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I sure as hell can," Sam argued.

"Stay out of this, Sammy. The grown-ups are talking."

"Do you _ever _shut up with your not-so-witty one-liners?" Charlie demanded.

Dean took the bait immediately. "Do you ever just _shut the f –_"

He barely had time to dodge the small log Charlie hurled at him like a javelin.

"What the hell?" Dean and Sam yelped.

"That's what she does when you tell her to shut up and aren't nice about it."

The three of them turned to towards the doorway, where Ivy now stood, clad in a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and a Metallica T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her face seemed taut and pale even in the low light, and the fatigue and pleading tone of her voice immediately averted the impending explosion between Dean and Charlie.

"Can't we just put our differences aside and try to function together?" Ivy continued. "We _live _together right now, for God's sake."

"I'm sorry," Charlie apologised, walking over to Ivy and hugging her cousin.

"It's okay," Ivy assured her. "This isn't exactly the easiest of situations. But we're just making it harder than it has to be – don't you agree?"

Sam nodded and Dean shrugged.

"Dean, Sam." Ivy's voice was now firm. "I hope this is the last time Charlie and I have to apologise to you for the way we react to your involvement in this. We'll do better – right, Charlie?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, too." Charlie's acquiescence made Dean do a double-take, but she went right back into character, saying, "But you guys have to cooperate with us on our terms here. This is our family's unfortunate legacy. We call the shots."

"Alright," Sam agreed.

"Sorry, girls," Dean said gruffly, feeling properly chastised. _Dude, when did you hand these girls your balls on a keychain? _

He caught Charlie's eye right at that moment, and she burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Sam asked.

Dean glared at Charlie. "Okay, seriously, woman," he said in an exasperated voice, "we have _got _to put up some boundaries regarding how many times you can look in my head, okay?"

She simply laughed, but nodded. "I can always try, but it's better than television, Charlie quipped.

Ivy gave her a pleading look. "Come on, Charlie. Let's be serious. If Dean wants you to cut back on your mental voyeurism, it's only fair. After all, he can't do the same back at you."

Dean couldn't help himself. "Yeah, and thank God for that!"

"We're only here to help," Sam interjected, fearful of another emotional explosion despite the new agreement. "And we really do want to help you. If there's anything we can do to make this world safer, we'll do it."

Ivy and Charlie nodded, and stuck their hands out. "Deal," they chorused.

They all shook hands.

* * *

It was one in the morning, and Dean couldn't sleep. He'd shut his eyes for a few minutes but instead of tuning out all his worries and doubts, his head would just turn up the volume. When all he could hear was himself think, Dean knew he'd be in for a long night.

There was a soft knock on the door so tentative Dean thought at first that his mind was now playing tricks on him. Then he heard a second, louder one.

He turned on the light and got out of bed, kneading a knot in his left shoulder. He opened the door and was floored to see Ivy standing there.

"Uh, hey," he stammered. _Shit._

"Couldn't sleep," Ivy said. "Did I wake you?"

"No. Can't sleep either," Dean replied, stepping aside to admit her into the room. "So, what's up?"

She went over to the window and looked out into the night. "Nothing." Her hushed voice struck a chord somewhere deep inside him, and he fought back the urge to do something about it. She looked at him over her shoulder. "You probably think Charlie and I are freaks, huh?"

Dean shook his head. "A bit crazy maybe," he joked. He sobered instantly. "But every family has a story. Heck. Our family history unleashed the Apocalypse."

"Yeah, thanks for that." Her eyes had a teasing glint that would have looked evil on anyone else.

"Hey, we thought we were saving the world!" Dean sat down on the bed and reclining against the pillows.

Ivy smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. "You don't have to save it by yourself," she said gently.

Dean smiled awkwardly and shifted into a more comfortable position on the bed. "Yeah, it gets kind of hard, I guess," he said, trying to be flippant. But she'd touched a nerve – not a bad one, though.

A lonely one.

He coughed inadvertently and rubbed his eyes. "I hate not being able to sleep," he said, desperate to change the subject.

"Me too." Ivy leaned back on her elbows so that she was stretched out on the foot of the bed, her dark auburn waves pooling under hers shoulders onto the duvet. "Too many thoughts running around in my head."

"The voices! Make the voices stop!" Dean blurted out.

Ivy burst out laughing. "You have no idea how many times I thought that when Charlie and I were growing up," she said. "Her powers kicked in early, right around her eleventh birthday. I was there for her first summer with the ability. She didn't know how to control it at first; she'd just pop into my head out of nowhere."

Dean found himself smiling. "Yeah, seems like Charlie," he chuckled. "You two are really close, huh?"

Ivy nodded. "More like sisters than cousins, really," she said. "When Charlie's dad figured out what was going on, he started teaching her right away. He had the same ability – it's hereditary thanks to the Fey's curse on our family. By the beginning of the next summer, she'd gotten so good that she could talk to me in Dublin all the way from here."

Dean was impressed. It seemed that the mental powers bestowed by the Fey were a lot stronger than those from the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Charlie and Ivy were their own flavour of Special K, but at least they weren't running around killing other people with mental powers like Sam's bunch had done.

"What about your abilities?" Dean asked.

Ivy's demeanour visibly faded. After a moment she said quietly, "Mine didn't kick in until just a couple of years ago. They started out kind of like Sam's – he told me earlier – with really bad migraines and shitty sleep. I could never retain any of the visions for the first year. Then they started becoming more vivid." Ivy shuddered.

"Sorry," Dean said quickly.

"It's alright." Ivy gave him a bright, though small, smile. "And what about you?"

"I don't know – what about me, exactly?" asked Dean.

"The whole I-can-be-your-hero-baby think," explained Ivy. "Where does that come from?" She straightened up and swung herself around so that she was sitting cross-legged in front of him.

Dean's brow furrowed, and Ivy immediately felt guilty. "I'm sorry," she swiftly apologised. "Oh, God. That's none of my business."

"No, don't be," Dean heard himself saying. He sighed and tried to find the right words. "I…I don't really know," he faltered. "I guess it's because my dad always reminded me to take care of Sam, you know? He always expected me to look out for Sam and protect him. I guess because my dad was our hero, I wanted to be one too." He shook himself back to his senses. "Wow. That's just…wow, maybe a bit too much information, huh?"

Ivy laughed nervously. "Maybe." She fell silent for a moment then quickly said, "I should probably go."

Dean caught her eye and he tried to read her expression. _Dammit, _he thought. _Just let her leave. You don't want this. This isn't what you're here for. You're here on business. Strictly business. _

He managed to convince himself of that rather swiftly, but he still had to use every ounce of willpower to say, "Yeah, try and get some sleep. You've had a long day."

Ivy got off the bed and made her way to the door. She looked over her shoulder again at him. "Good night, Dean."

"Night." He watched her leave, and found himself wishing he didn't have to.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Castiel watched the sun rise.

He'd seen more sunsets and sunrises than any human had the patience to count, and yet the beauty of each one never failed to inspire a sense of awe in him.

Ever since he had first interacted with twenty-first century humans, Cas had not only slowly begun learning to understand them, but also to understand what it was like to be them. These strange "emotion" things had, at first, freaked him out, but he realized in time that emotions inspired mortals to do many great things.

Some of them were terrible, yes, but all of them were also great in the sense that they had learned to drastically change their world.

Emotions, Cas now knew, got humans into trouble, but also out of it. With that in mind, the Angel got up from his perch on the moss-covered rock he'd occupied for the last day and a half, and made his way back to Griffin Vale.

* * *

The girls, evidently, had been up early: by the time Dean came down, Ivy and Charlie were finished with breakfast and about to depart for a morning run, they explained when he saw them tying their shoes in the front hall. Sam stepped out of the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal.

"A run?" Dean repeated. "Where?"

Ivy laughed. "Where else? The woods, of course."

"Yeah. Okay. You have fun with that."

Ivy and Charlie exchanged amused glances. "Afraid of a little nature run?" Charlie teased good-naturedly.

"Nope," Dean replied. "Just perfectly happy in my comfort zone."

"I'll join you," Sam said, finishing his cereal, "if you're okay to wait maybe ten minutes?"

The girls nodded and Sam returned upstairs to change. Meanwhile, Dean wandered into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee and something to nibble on. When he returned with a cup and some toast with peanut butter in hand, not only was Sam ready, but Ivy and Charlie had also removed their shirts and started stretching in their...sports bras.

Dean nearly dropped his breakfast but remained calm as he tried to discreetly check them out. He couldn't help it. Sam, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected.

Charlie's flat stomach rose taut above the waistband of her shorts, sculpted into a perfect set of abs. She wore a pair of really short shorts, whose apparent aerodynamically advantageous length came off as more advantageous to showing off long legs and an impressive bottom. But Dean's attention shifted quickly to Ivy, standing nearer to the door in a pair of black, skin-tight capri pants.

Ivy was stretching with her arms extended behind her as she balanced on one foot, the toned lines of every muscle somehow simultaneously bold and graceful. Her abdomen was not as chiselled as Charlie's, but Dean found himself more attracted to the slightly softer lines. With her hair braided and coiled into a knot on the back of her head and her slender frame perfectly still, she reminded Dean of statues and paintings he'd once seen of the Greek goddess Artemis in a mythology book.

He felt Charlie's eyes on him and realized to his chagrin that he'd been gawking. Mercifully, Ivy hadn't noticed; Sam, however, had, and was trying his best to keep a straight face.

"See you later, Dean," Charlie said, batting her eyes at him as they left.

Ivy smiled at him brightly. "Bye, Dean!"

* * *

It was one of those days when Ivy had the house all to herself. Thursdays were Charlie's solo days at the Motors, and normally Ivy busied herself with research and housekeeping. Today, however, she felt more restless than usual even after pushing herself during the morning run harder than she had before

_Focus, _she told herself in the reading room. _There are Faeries to deal with. _ She grabbed a heavy tome off the shelf and strode with purpose towards her reading chair.

_Then again, your aura could use a bit of a spring-cleaning, too._

She set the book down on a side table and went upstairs to change into a fresh set of workout clothes. In a few minutes, she returned to the reading room with a yoga mat rolled up under her arm.

That was why, twenty minutes later, the Winchesters found her bent double in the middle of the reading room with a book about the Fey propped open upside down behind her heels so she could read it.

"He…llo?" Sam said inquisitively.

"Oh, hey! Don't mind me. Needed to be a bit more Zen," she joked. Ivy was simultaneously glad and embarrassed that she was standing facing away from them, for she had realised the view they must be seeing.

"Nice wide-legged forward bend," Dean managed to say, right before she moved fluidly into a warrior pose briefly and then into a standing split. _Wow, smooth. _"I've never seen somebody do a standing split so easily," he bleated.

Sam stared at him. "Wait, you know yoga poses?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean replied. "Lisa, remember?"

"Ah, right," Sam murmured.

Ivy momentarily let go of her calm and felt a prickle of jealousy. For no reason, she thought, straightening out and shaking out her limbs. Letting her hair loose, she shoot out the dark auburn mane and let it tumble down her back. After taking a final calming breath, she bent down to roll up her mat and turned to face them. "So, what's up?" she asked brightly, avoiding Dean's eyes.

"We were looking for some information…thought we might find it here in your…extensive collection," Sam said.

The reading room was covered on all four walls with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves groaning under the weight of innumerable volumes. The Griffin library was indeed quite impressive, boasting several books that were so old that they had to be kept in wooden boxes behind glass doors. There were several also written in ancient languages, including old Irish. Sam, as studious as if he was still back at Stanford, had read online about an ancient Celtic manuscript dealing with Faeries, and the name had been familiar. He'd later realised that it was because the Griffins had it in their library.

"Knock yourselves out," Ivy offered, sweeping her hand around the room. "We don't really have much of a system…just try to put stuff back in the general area you found it." She avoided Dean's gaze, smiling at Sam exclusively during the entire exchange. "I'll see you in a few minutes – have to change."

She walked briskly in between them on her way out.

Sam waited until her footsteps disappeared upstairs then turned an incredulous face to Dean. "Wow, winter sure comes fast around here," he remarked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean replied defensively.

"Don't lie. That totally bothered you!" Sam gloated.

"Shut up, Sammy."

"Make me, jerk."

"Lay off, bitch." Dean blew out an exasperated sigh. "Do you actually need me right now, or can I chill on my own for a bit?"

"I just need to look up one thing, so go ahead," Sam said absentmindedly, already scanning a shelf that he thought he'd seen the book on. He paused. "Wait, didn't you want to look up some stuff too?"

"I can do it later." He was already halfway down the hall.

* * *

Dean stalked out of the back door in a huff; he was definitely annoyed with the sudden cold shoulder that Ivy had given him back there, and even more annoyed about it knowing that Sam had noticed. "What the hell," he muttered to himself, pacing the length of the veranda. "I didn't say anything. Jesus Christ."

"I don't think he'd appreciate you using his name that way."

Dean whirled around, startled. "Cas!" he exclaimed. "Whoa, hey, dude. Where have you been?"

"Meditating," Castiel replied. "I needed to clear my head. Are the girls around?"

"Charlie's working at the garage and Ivy's upstairs in the shower or whatever," Dean replied. "Why? What's up?"

"I need to talk to them," Cas said simply. "Please let Ivy know." He started walking away.

"Uh, okay. Well, nice to see you too," Dean called out after him. He sat down on the porch glider, sulking.

* * *

Ivy found Dean still brooding on the veranda some fifteen minutes later, his arms crossed and his body slouched down as he stared out across the back yard to the forest line. It was only mid afternoon, but the sky had darkened again in an unseasonable fashion, making the humid air hang heavy with the promise of another thunderstorm. But there was a thunderstorm already brewing inside Dean, Ivy immediately sensed.

"Hey," she said tentatively, walking over to lean by the railing next to the glider.

" 'Sup." He was detached, noncommittal; Ivy frowned, perturbed.

"Is…is everything alright?" she ventured.

He glanced at her for the briefest of moments. "I don't know," he finally said. "You tell me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, so, what – you don't remember that sudden cold shoulder you turned on back there?"

Ivy stared at him, floundering mentally for an excuse. "I did not," she finally said, the words sounding hollow and lame in her ears as well as Dean's.

Dean scoffed. "Yeah, right." The air between them crackled with tension until he finally said, "I kind of want to be alone right now, okay?"

Ivy walked away without a word. A few minutes later, Dean heard the loud bass purr of a motorcycle engine as she drove out of the garage and off into the town.

Castiel, who had turned back and arrived just as the exchange began, frowned and found himself worrying for Dean and Ivy. He'd had the sense not to burst around the corner and make a tense situation even worse, but questions burned in his mind.

There was one person who could explain it, besides Dean.

* * *

It was one of those days when Charlie had Griffin Motors all to herself. With the Top 40 hits of the late '80s and early '90s blasting from the battered stereo above the tool cabinet, she was elbow-deep in Lucy O'Reilly's Volvo and shaking her booty.

"_Can't touch this! Da-dada-dum!_" she sang into a wrench, Hammer-dancing across the garage to turn up the volume. "_Can't touch this!_"

"Touch what?"

Charlie's screech of surprise actually hurt Castiel's ears – and for an Angel, that was saying something, considering the wavelength upon which he and his brothers communicated.

"You have _got _to stop that," Charlie bleated, repeating her sentiments from the previous day. "That's just creepy. And weird."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said. "My…'people skills' need some 'work.' Well, that's what Sam and Dean are 'always' saying…oh well."

Charlie found herself smiling like an idiot. "Okay," she heard herself saying, "first thing you have to realise is that 'this' – " she made air quotes – "isn't appropriate to do for everything."

Castiel frowned. "Your language is so inefficient," he remarked. "How else am I supposed to emphasise anything?"

"Use your words, Cas," Charlie laughed.

"What?"

"Um…" Charlie cleared her throat. "Just…well, it's in how you say things, right?"

"If you say so." Castiel frowned a moment, then remembered why he'd come to Chalrie in the first place. "I have a question," he said bluntly.

"Shoot," she said, digging around in her toolbox. "I'm listening,"

"Why does love make humans act so strangely towards each other?" Castiel asked.

"What makes you say that?" Charlie wanted to know.

"I overheard Dean and Ivy talking on the porch earlier," the Angel explained. "It seems strange to me that two people who have such obvious attraction for one another would be so cold. Ivy apparently gave Dean the silent treatment for no reason, and now he's sulking on the porch."

Charlie was staring open-mouthed at Castiel.

"And I don't understand that now, either," Cas wheedled. "What did I say that was so 'wrong'? Why are you looking at me like that?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"They have _feelings _for each other?" Charlie asked incredulously.

"Well, yes," Castiel replied, frowning. "With your powers I thought you'd know that already…"

"Well, obviously I could tell that about Dean," she said, "but Ivy's had years of practice on me; she knows how to bar her thoughts when she wants to. I could have sworn she wasn't kidding when she said she didn't like him."

Castiel nodded, but said, "Why are you so against it, though?"

Charlie turned a guarded eye to him. "She's my cousin. She's the only family I have left in the world. We protect each other."

"I'm sure there are worse things in the world to protect her from, Charlie."

Charlie bit her lip, but kept her gaze locked into Castiel's. "I can't take that chance. These are the Winchesters, Cas."

Castiel shook his head emphatically. "Don't assume that their family history defines them, Charlie," he insisted. "It doesn't define them…no more than yours defines _you._"

* * *

Ivy pulled into a parking spot at the diner and went inside, making a beeline for the booth she and Charlie normally occupied. Lucy was there within moments, a cup of black tea in hand.

"What'll it be, love?" she asked as Ivy took the cup.

One of Ivy's favourite things about the diner was that it served breakfast all day, and normally when she was this upset she would order stacked pancakes with extra maple syrup and an order of bacon on the side. But she stopped herself and replied instead, "Just the chicken BLT, please."

"Coming right up."

The rest of the diner was empty. When Lucy came back, Ivy's food was fresh off the grill. The mouth-watering smell of homestyle fries wafted up to Ivy's nose, and she realised she was hungrier than she'd anticipated.

"Mind if I join you awhile?" Lucy asked.

"Please do." Ivy smiled as the older woman took the seat opposite her.

"So, those two young strangers," Lucy began, "I heard they're staying with you?"

Ivy nodded, removing the toothpick from one quarter of her gigantic sandwich. "Met them when they arrived in town," she explained, "and they weren't too pleased that we don't have a motel."

"Well, if they'd come two months ago Gormley's B&B would still be open," Lucy said. She suddenly gasped. "Oh, Ivy, I didn't mean to – "

Ivy shook her head. "No, it's alright, really," she assured Lucy.

After a moment, Lucy remarked, "One of them was in here yesterday. Cute, he was."

"Who, Dean?"

"Yes, that's the one." Lucy smiled. "It's been a while since you've seen anyone, hasn't it?"

Ivy laughed. "Oh, Luce!" she said. "That's just bad for business. Can't go mixing hunting with romance, sadly."

"Business?" Lucy repeated. "Hunting?"

_Oh crap._

* * *

Castiel observed Charlie working in the garage with great interest. She had long since finished the work on Lucy O'Reilly's car and was now working on a rusted up bucket of a Toyota that, to the Angel's nose, smelled more like the inside of a gas pump than a car.

"Why does it smell like that?" he asked.

Charlie straightened up. "You can smell that from across the room?"

"Well…yes. I am a powerful being."

_Right, forgot about that. _"Come here," she said.

"There?" Cas parroted, pointing. "There, by the car? Next to you?"

"Yes…" Charlie looked at him strangely.

"I thought I was supposed to stay in the corner."

"Just get over here," Charlie said impatiently. Castiel complied, and she pointed inside the hood. "That's the crank case," she began. "When you can smell that gassy kind of smell, it's time to change the oil. This is where we begin."

Castiel looked at her, unsure of what she expected him to do.

"Grab that right there. That's the fill cap. Now let's find the dipstick."

"That's what Dean calls sometimes calls people with bad attitudes," Cas remarked.

Charlie laughed. "Well, it's transferable. Now…"

Not too long after, Castiel had done his first-ever oil change.

"That wasn't so hard," the Angel mused, holding his hands out in front of him and looking at his grubby digits. "It's awfully messy though."

"That's part of the job," Charlie said, amused by his fastidiousness. "It's better than blood and guts, though."

"Yes. They are difficult to get out of clothes."

Castiel was surprised to hear Charlie laugh yet again at his remarks. "I wasn't aware I was being humorous," he said. "I don't understand why you're laughing."

"Because that was funny," Charlie explained. "You're actually quite good for a laugh, Castiel. I don't mean that in a mean way, though. I just mean that you're…easy to get along with, maybe. When you're not uptight."

"Dean said the same thing once. We became friends after that."

"Oh, really?"

"He's not as crass as you think." Castiel started washing his hands off in the sink. "We started to become quite close after he made me watch the video of the pizza man."

* * *

"So it's not enough that you go around being a macho pest, but you have to corrupt angels, too?"

Even in his darkened mood Dean could detect the note of good-natured sarcasm in Charlie's voice. "Hello to you too," he replied gruffly. "I guess Castiel found you and told you about the pizza video?"

Charlie giggled as she came up the front steps. "Yep."

"He was here earlier," Dean continued. "Said he wanted to talk to you and Ivy, and went off right after I told him neither of you were home."

"Yeah, he dropped by the Motors," Charlie confirmed. "He didn't mention anything to me though."

"Well, he said he wanted to talk to Ivy too. Apparently it's important."

Charlie pursed her lips. "Maybe he'll come back later on this evening. He went off into town after the Motors." She looked around, suddenly confused. "Where's Ivy? Usually she's home by now if she stepped out during the day, unless she's hunting."

Dean shrugged. "I think she took off on a motorcycle or something," he said impassively. "Whatever."

Charlie narrowed her eyes. "What did you do?" she demanded. "What did you say to her?"

The older Winchester stared at her. "Nothing, I swear to God," he insisted. "Sam and I just found her doing yoga in the reading room, and suddenly she was all ice-queen on me."

"She doesn't get provoked without reason," Charlie said.

"Well, I did nothing wrong, and she took off really pissed at me and I don't know why."

_Oh, you're such a boy!_

_What the hell?_ Dean looked around wildly, and realised Charlie had spoken to him in his head again.

_You're getting the hang of it. _Charlie cocked an eyebrow. _Oh, wow. You really don't see what you did wrong?_

"No, I do _not,_" Dean replied out loud. "Jesus. What was that for?"

"Trying to see what went on. And oh, I did." Charlie pulled her hair out of its elastic and raked her hand through the rambunctious golden curls that fell over her shoulders. "It's not often that Ivy expresses any kind of…well. Hm. How can I put this delicately?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "After the way you've been verbally kicking my ass from here into next Sunday, you're suddenly worried about how to phrase something?"

"It's a delicate issue, Dean."

"Well, out with it, then!"

Charlie sighed. "Ivy doesn't often act jealous. When she does, it's with reason. Not a logical one, but a reason."

"Huh?" Dean said, confused.

"See, that's exactly what I mean about you being such a boy," Charlie explained. "Dean, she likes you a lot. And she's a bit jealous of whoever this…Lisa person is."

Dean stared daggers into Charlie, who physically backed away from him. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Dean, whoa. I'm sorry."

"Don't you ever say her name or Ben's name out loud," Dean growled. "_Never. _Do you read me?"

"Loud and clear," Charlie said uneasily. "But – "

"I don't want to talk about it." He turned away.

Charlie pursed her lips. "Fine, then," she snapped a moment later. "Go wallow."

"Yeah, well, why don't you go, oh I don't know, throw shit around in the garage," Dean retorted.

Charlie twisted her hair back up into a messy knot, her blue eyes glinting. "Yeah, maybe I will. Don't come in, though." She walked back down the steps and tossed over her shoulder, "I never miss twice."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

"Dumbass," Charlie growled under her breath, stomping into the garage and throwing her jacket over a stepladder. "You try to be nice to him, and _boom…_"

The clouds had rolled in yet again and it looked like more rain was on its way, but Charlie was too worked up to care. Late nights in the garage were always her cure-all for any anxiety or stress, and these days it just seemed like there was too much of that going around.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much work to be done on any of the cars or bikes that the Griffins had in their personal garage. Ivy's deVille still needed some work under the hood but there was no way on Earth or in Hell that Charlie was going to touch Ivy's baby. They were the only family either of them had left in the world, but that wouldn't stop Ivy from throttling Charlie for fooling around with her car.

Of course, Charlie wouldn't stand for that either if Ivy did anything to hers.

Charlie kicked a stack of winter tires, letting out a frustrated bellow. She wished the Winchesters hadn't come their way. As much as she was getting used to Dean's deadpan snarker attitude and Sam's quiet broody manner, Charlie had never had to share her space with outsiders this way ever before in her life. She didn't begrudge Ivy's offering them a place to stay – though, granted, that had been before they'd known the Winchesters would be sticking around – because Ivy was like that. Ivy was the kind of person who would bring home wounded critters in the hopes that they would survive. And most of them did.

Charlie laughed, hardly believing she had just compared the Winchesters to injured woodland creatures.

"How good to hear you laughing again, Charlotte."

Charlie whirled around, grabbing her knife out of the top of her boot and sliding easily into a defensive position. Standing behind her was a slender, willowy woman, tall and seemingly radiant even in the darkened afternoon light. Her impossibly pale hair hung down her back in flowing curls past her waist, and her alabaster skin seemed to glow from a light emanating from within.

"You," Charlie said tersely.

"I do have a name, you know," the woman said curtly.

"Give me one good reason why I should respect you by calling you by it," Charlie snapped.

The woman raised a hand and made a backhanded motion in the air. Although Charlie was a few feet away, her head still snapped to the right and she could still feel the sting of the most god-awful bitch-slap she'd ever received.

Raising fiery, indignant blue eyes to her unwelcome guest, Charlie growled, "What do you want, Titania?"

* * *

"Listen to this."

Dean had barely set foot into the reading room and Sam was already coming at him with research. Then again, Dean mused, whatever "important news" Castiel needed to share with them had yet to actually make it into any conversation they'd all had so far. If Sam had made some kind of break on his own, then that would be a good way to get the hunt going.

"According to this," Sam continued as Dean came over to the table, "when there is a weakness in the veil, it's not just the Faeries and their creatures that can pass through. The magic on the other side of the veil leaks through, too – it already does, but not huge amounts. When the veil is torn, even just a bit, the magic from Fey pours out like a dam that's burst."

"What happens then?" Dean asked.

"Anything on our side of the veil that has any powers connected to Fey become more powerful," Sam replied.

"Powers? You mean like –"

" – like Charlie's mind reading. And Ivy's visions."

Dean scratched his head. "So the girls' powers are getting stronger," he said. "That's a good thing, though – right?"

"Well, yes and no," Sam said. "It's not just their powers getting stronger on this side of the veil. Any creature that slipped through before will be stronger too."

It was starting to come together in Dean's mind. "So the dire-creatures running around like crazy," he said.

Sam nodded, then suddenly rose from the table. "I'm going to go get Charlie," he explained. "I think she's down in the garage. We need to start figuring out how we're going to deal with this. Where's Ivy?"

* * *

The first thing Ivy noticed when she got home just after dusk was that the garage door was down and all the lights were out. She pulled up in front of the house instead, cutting the engine and trying to ignore the sense of foreboding growing in her gut.

Dean came out of the house almost instantly. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

"None of your business," Ivy retorted tartly.

Dean's entire demeanour became subdued, and Ivy was taken aback. "Sam went into the garage twenty minutes ago to get Charlie," he said. He looked over at the garage. "I don't know what happened between then and now."

* * *

"Charlotte, I'm sick of trying to bargain with you," Titania said, her voice dripping like honey and stinging like poison. "Clearly, I'm going to have to up the ante." She made another sweeping gesture in the air with her hand and Sam went flying into a rack of tools.

"Sam!" Charlie exclaimed as he collapsed onto the floor, groaning in pain.

"Now you listen to me," Titania continued, "I've not much patience anymore for Griffin antics. Your family has been jerking me around for more than a century. I've been waiting since your folk were still skulking around in Kerry and Clare for you to pay your dues."

"We've been keeping up our end of every bargain we've made with you," Charlie insisted.

"You call tearing the veil apart and striking new deals to cancel out old ones 'keeping up your end'?" Titania exploded, her rage starting to boil over.

"You have to play by the rules too, you know," Charlie tossed back, "and you lot do your fair share of bending the rules in your advantage."

More hand gestures, followed by Sam bellowing out in pain as Tatiana sent him hurtling across the room yet again.

"I'm warning you, Charlotte," the Faerie Queen said. "I have run very low on patience for you. It's time to pay your dues."

* * *

"Where's your shotgun?" Dean demanded.

Ivy glared at him. "The entire Griffin arsenal is locked in the garage with Charlie and Sam," she replied tersely. She held up the pistol she always carried. "This cricket's the only heat I'm packing right now."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"I'm not quite sure you understand. Every ounce of firepower we own is in that garage. They should be fine."

"And what if there are more of them out here?" Dean challenged.

Ivy checked the sights on her pistol. "Better start praying, then," she said flatly.

A second later, they heard a sound of rushing air and Castiel's voice behind hem. "You called?"

* * *

Charlie was so, so screwed.

If it was any other monster she'd stand a chance in here – behind one of the shelving systems was the Griffin armoury, which was stocked well enough to defend against just about any ghoulie, ghostie, or beastie. But Titania was a Faerie Queen, and she had the entire garage on lockdown, including both Charlie and Sam.

Sam was currently pinned up high on the far wall, and Charlie was frozen in place. They were defenseless.

Charlie tried to send out a thought-message to Dean or Ivy, but Titania crowed, her high-pitched laugh so eerie it made Ivy's blood run cold. "Do you really think I'd let you do that?" the Faerie Queen demanded. "No running to Ivy or Dean for either of you this time." She dragged a finger lazily through the air and a line of blood appeared on Sam's left forearm. "Start talking, Charlie," she warned.

* * *

"Any idea what's going on in there, Cas?" Dean asked.

Castiel's voice was grave. "It's not a dire-creature," he said, "otherwise they would have fired on it by now. No. It's definitely something of greater power…" His voice trailed off. "…it's…it's a Faerie."

* * *

"Maybe I'm not making myself clear enough," Titania mused. She let Sam slide down the wall to collapse in a heap on the floor. She'd managed to scrape his arms to shreds – not enough to scar him forever, thankfully, but enough to make him look like he'd gone through a wood chipper.

The Faerie Queen turned her attention to Charlie and focused on her. "How's your pain tolerance these days, Charlie?" she taunted. "High enough to hold out until your precious little cousin can come save you?"

Charlie cried out at the searing pain that ripped its way across her cheek.

At that moment, the garage door was torn off in a high-pitched metallic shriek. Titania whirled around, still keeping Charlie in the grip of her power.

Castiel strode into the garage, his face grave and his voice commanding. "Leave this place," he said simply. Ivy and Dean appeared behind him, firearms at the ready.

Titania visibly recoiled in horror, releasing Charlie unknowingly as her focus shifted to the Angel. "You," she gasped. "You're one of them. One of the ones who cast my kind out of Heaven."

"You threw yourselves to Hell with Lucifer," Castiel corrected. "You just didn't make it all the way to Hell. Leave this place willingly, and I will not harm you. Resist, and I will have to."

Titania narrowed her cold eyes, but she backed down. "You'll be seeing me again, Charlotte," she warned.

In a flash, she was gone, and Ivy and Dean ran into the garage to check on their kin.

"Sammy, you okay?" Dean asked, crouching by Sam and putting a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"It's Sam. And yes, I'm okay. Nothing broken," Sam wheezed, still unable to get his breath properly after being bashed around the garage.

"Save your breath, man," Dean said, inspecting his brother's wounds. "Yeah, you're going to be fine." He looked up. "Hey, Cas?"

Castiel wasn't paying attention to Dean, though. Charlie was on her knees on the other side of the room, hunched over and crying hysterically as Ivy tried to comfort her. Cas walked over to them, and Ivy looked up at him. After a moment she got up to her feet and stepped aside. Cas knelt down in front of Charlie, and cupped his hand under her chin to make her look at him. Out of nowhere, he gently kissed Charlie, and the long, oozing cut on her face disappeared.

Ivy stared, trying to wrap her head around what she was seeing.

Dean made a face. "I think I'm going to be sick," he muttered.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Castiel pulled away from Charlie and she stared at him through the haze clouding her vision. Titania's paralysis spell had been far too powerful for Charlie to break, and she felt like her head was going to split in half.

"Cas," she squeaked. A full sentence was just beyond her capabilities at the moment; the strain of trying to break Titania's hold coupled with the adrenaline from the confrontation and Castiel's spontaneous display of affection made her dizzy and exhausted.

He hushed her and placed two fingers on her forehead. "Sleep," the Angel instructed gently.

Charlie passed out and Cas caught her. Still oblivious to the incredulous stares that the Winchesters and Ivy were giving him, he lifted Charlie as if she weighed nothing. As he left the garage, he paused by Sam; a slight touch and a moment later, Sam too was healed, and Cas proceeded to the house.

"Okay, first, where the _heck _did that come from, and second, who the_ hell _was that freaky pale bitch?" Dean demanded to no-one in particular after Castiel left.

"Titania," Sam said, back on his feet but still visibly exhausted. "Queen of the Faeries."

"Well, one of them," Ivy corrected. "She's more well-known because of Shakespeare, but she's actually a lesser queen."

"Shakespeare?" Dean repeated.

"Yeah,_ A Midsummer Night's Dream_," Sam explained.

Dean just stared blankly at him.

"Anyway," Sam continued, "I guess we know who we're up against now, right?"

Ivy bit her lip uncertainly. "It still doesn't help much," she said quietly.

* * *

"Would you mind explaining to me why a Faerie Queen is out to get you?" Dean asked, sitting down on the side of the couch nearest Ivy's armchair in the livng room.

Ivy sighed. "She's the dealmaker," she began, rubbing the inner corners of her eyes, trying to wear off the sting of sudden fatigue. "The modern world, for the most part, only knows her as the Queen of the Faeries in Shakespeare, as Sam already told you…but in reality, things are much more complicated than that. She's but one of many Faerie Queens, and a distant relation of the traditional Celtic Faeries."

"Okay, you're losing me," Dean interjected.

Ivy looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "It's all in the library," she pointed out, but she backtracked. "What I'm trying to say is that in our time, Titania is a fabrication of William Shakespeare, and the Aos Sí _– _the Irish Celtic Fey – are a mystical race descended from ancient Celtic deities. But she is actually one of them. She just…defected a little bit."

"So what do you mean by 'dealmaker'?" Dean asked. "And why did Castiel say she threw herself out of Heaven with Lucifer?"

"There are many origin tales about the Tuatha Dé Dannan – the race of deities and heroes in Irish Gaelic mythology," Ivy said. "And the Aos Sí come from the Tuatha Dé Dannan. Traditionally, they can all be traced back to one progenitor, but there were some later…additions to the Sí when Lucifer committed treason."

"What do you mean?"

"Think of a family tree, like yours or mine. There is a direct ascendance, but there are also additions from other families. Basically, what I mean is that while some of the Fey are of the ancient lineage, many more were added to their number when Lucifer fell," Ivy explained. She paused for a long moment, then straightened up in her chair and looked Dean in the eye. "You know how Demons are classified differently, right?"

"Yeah. They've got a hierarchy. Like, crossroads demons all report to one son-of-a-bitch boss-man demon who basically signs all the contracts and holds them," Dean replied, his face darkening with an inner rage. "Like Crowley back in the day," he added, more to himself than to Ivy.

"Titania is kind of like the Fey version of Crowley," Ivy said. In response to Dean's confused look, she added, "Yes, I know who he is. Every hunter does. We'd all love to take him out."

Dean made a noncommittal grunt. "Titania, then – she makes Faerie deals?"

"Yep. Leprechauns barter with humans and deliver the contracts to her to make the deals go through. And she's the one who comes to collect."

It began to dawn on Dean exactly why Titania was there. "You said that one of your ancestors made a deal with the Faeries," he ventured.

"Yeah, our great-great-great-grandfather Eoin," Ivy confirmed. "And now Titania's come to settle up."

* * *

Sam collapsed onto his bed and rubbed his eyes wearily. The last few days had been such a rollercoaster that it was hard to believe that it really only been a few days since he and Dean had rolled into Pine Valley. It wasn't just the unusual qualities of the town or the area – it was the entire situation they'd found themselves in.

His hours of research since arriving had revealed connections between different folkloric representations of Faeries, and after tonight's episode with Titania, Sam realized just how true these connections were. In recent years Sam had learned – often the hard way – that religion and mythology from all over the world wasn't as neatly compartmentalised as the world made it all out to be; in fact, everything supernatural and paranormal was intertwined in a gloriously chaotic web of overlapping faiths and traditions. This was no different.

Sam hoped that Castiel would remain a constant presence in the house now. Titania obviously feared the Angel enough to heed his commands. But what if the next time she paid a visit, Castiel was nowhere to be found? What if she brought reinforcements?

Sam growled in frustration, sitting up to pull off his shirt before falling back onto the bed. They needed a plan, and fast.

* * *

"Let me get this straight, then," Dean said after a very long silence passed between them. "Your family is wrapped up in some crazy Faerie deal that's got a Faerie Queen so pissed off she's willing to kill anyone and everyone to make sure you and Charlie pay up? When the _hell _were you planning on telling us this?"

"Obviously we weren't expecting anything to play out this way," Ivy said defensively. "We protect Pine Valley, as Eoin Ó Gríobhtha promised the townspeople way back in the day. And we prevent the town from invading the parts of this area that are sacred to the Fey, as the promised them. In return, the Fey themselves keep their distance; their creatures wander as they please, but whatever crosses the line by harming or killing is fair game for us. Our previous deals with them are negated by the creation of _this _deal. We keep our word, and they're supposed to keep theirs."

"So, you're basically saying that Titania has no business coming around here demanding payment?"

"Exactly."

"What kind of payment is she expecting, anyway?"

Ivy's face darkened. "What else would a Faerie Queen accept as payment," she said hollowly, "other than the firstborn children of those who made the deal?"

Dean's face clouded over. "You and Charlie – where do you fall in the birth order of your families?"

"Charlie's the second. Her older brother died when he was ten and she was eight, but she was born second." Ivy fell silent.

"Ivy?" Dean felt he already knew the answer, but he needed to know for sure.

"I'm the oldest," Ivy said quietly. She met his gaze with a look that was at once both defiant and frightened. "She's after me."

"Oh, this is just great," Dean snapped, getting up off the couch and pacing in front of the fire place. "So is she just going to take you, or is she going to swap you out with some evil-ass changeling? And are we going to be able to stop it? Do you know how dangerous this entire thing is going to be if we're trying to stop the veil from breaking completely and a freakin' Faerie Queen is after your hide?"

Ivy got to her feet and stood in front of him, her hands on her hips and her eyes blazing. "If I recall correctly, you're not too keen on being here," she said angrily.

At that precise moment, the thunderstorm opened up over Pine Valley, and the rain started lashing at the windowpanes. Dean couldn't help but marvel at the serendipitous timing of it all; with Ivy about to blow up on him, there was definitely more effect behind her words with thunder booming in the distance.

Ivy ignored the storm and continued ripping into Dean. "You're a perfectly lovely person when you're not being self-centred and thinking the entire world needs to be saved by you," she pointed out. "Charlie and I never asked for you to stay. You and Sam decided that of your own volition, so I don't get why you're getting so worked up about any of this."

"I am getting worked up about this," Dean exploded, "because Sam and I are a part of this too now. And we chose to stay here to help you because Cas said you two needed it!"

"Then stop trying to run the show," Ivy shot back. "This is our family's problem."

"So, what are you saying – you don't want our help? You don't appreciate that we could be out there, saving people and hunting things, but we're here instead with you?"

"I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that you shouldn't be treating us like defenseless civilians, because we're hunters just like you and we know how to deal with this kind of shit."

Dean flared up. "I'm not trying to interfere with anything," he said, closing the gap between them with a few abrupt strides so that they were face-to-face and right up in it. "I'm trying to protect you!"

"I don't need it."

"This Faerie Queen bitch is after you, and you don't need protection? You're crazy if you think I'm going to roll over on this."

Another moment of silence passed between them, Ivy looked right up at him, her brown eyes locking into his gaze. There was something in them that compelled him to simmer down, to realise exactly what he was trying to say.

"I don't get you." Her voice was suddenly softer. "We're strangers to you, Dean. Why does any of this matter to you?"

"Because," Dean said quietly, "I think I care about you too much. I don't know why, but I do. You're right – you're strangers, and I shouldn't be this involved. But dammit, Ivy, there's something here and you know it."

"Yeah, a batshit crazy Faerie Queen," Ivy stammered flippantly. She was suddenly acutely aware of the proximity of her body to Dean's.

"I'm not talking about her." Dean pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm talking about this."

* * *

Castiel sat by Charlie's bedside, watching over her as she rested in the Angel-induced sleep he'd given her. He could sense the strain that was left on her mind and soul after the confrontation with Titania; he knew that normal mortal sleep would not have healed it. With any other normal human, such an encounter with a Faerie monarch would not have been so damaging.

But Charlie was different, as was her cousin. The two of them were not safe in such close quarters with Titania, or any other of the more powerful Fey rulers.

Castiel's brow furrowed in concern as he mulled over this recent development, turning over all the information in his mind. He'd always known that Charlie and Ivy were in danger, but he hadn't realized that it was to such an extent.

There was only one reason why Charlie would be so sensitive to Titania's powers, to the point where the lesions in her mind and on her soul wept with the Faerie Queen's infectious power.

* * *

Ivy wasn't sure how it happened, but Dean was kissing her. She kissed him back instinctively, rising up on her tiptoes and sliding her arms around him as her mind raced to remember the last time she'd been kissed like this – the last time anyone had made her feel like she was falling, yet totally unafraid. With a start she realised that she'd never felt like this.

She pulled away suddenly. "Dean," she said, her breath catching in her throat. "Dean, we should talk about this." Her knees felt weak from the intensity of their kiss, and her heart raced in her chest as it dawned on her that she wanted this now more than she'd ever wanted it before. Although she'd felt unafraid only moments before, the epiphany of how strongly she felt for him was suddenly making her skittish.

Dean's heard pounded in his chest, and he could tell that the confusing cocktail of emotions that crashed over him like a wave was also crashing over Ivy. She was right, he knew – they probably should talk about what was happening between them…and what might very well happen soon.

Instead of agreeing with her, though, he drew her more tightly to him, lowering his head until his forehead rested against hers. He could feel her heart beating too, and he couldn't believe how he felt about her in that exact moment. "Do we really?" he asked. "We both know we feel about each other right now, right?"

Ivy nodded, swallowing hard as she tried to resist the urge to keep kissing him.

Dean continued, "I don't let anyone in, Ivy. I never do. It just hurts too much." His voice, already gruff from years of downing straight whiskey on too many lonely nights in crappy motel rooms, was low and rougher than it was normally, but Ivy could sense the tenderness lying beneath the surface.

Ivy found her voice. "Neither do I. So why should we ruin our dysfunctional friendship?"

Dean kissed her forehead gently, the affection in the action making Ivy wish she could find the strength to do what she wanted to do – to act upon these feelings for the first time in her life, without thinking about why she felt them or about the consequences to follow.

"Ivy," he said softly, "let's just stop thinking."

He kissed her again, and Ivy let herself surrender entirely to him.

* * *

Sam was just starting to drift off to sleep when the uneven, staggering footsteps out in the hall brought him back to being fully awake. Sitting up in bed, he rubbed his eyes, wondering why Dean was doing a drunken dance up the stairs.

When something crashed against the wall, Sam bolted out of bed and towards the door. But as he opened it, he realised that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. He'd opened his door just in time to see his brother and Ivy lock lips in the dark hallway, Ivy pressed up against the wall with her arms and legs wrapped around Dean.

Sam discreetly shut the door and crept back into bed. Drawing the sheets up around him, he couldn't help but wonder if a Cupid was running rampant.

* * *

Ivy fell against Dean's heaving chest into his arms, which he wrapped around her as he flipped her over onto the bed beside him. Breathless, he kissed her – gently now, but still passionately – as their racing hearts slowly settled and their breathing gradually became steady.

They lay facing each other in silence for a while, Dean's arms secure around Ivy and one hand carressing the back of her neck, Ivy's leg slung over his hip and her hand tracing light, lazy circles on his back. She snuggled closer to him, tucking her head under his chin. He smiled, burying his face in her tousled auburn waves and breathing in the delicate scent of her hair.

Ivy could feel herself drifting off to sleep, but she fought against the urge so that she could stay awake and enjoy the feeling of lying in Dean's arms for longer. After a while, she pulled away far enough to look properly into his face, but kept her body pressed against him. He kissed the tip of her nose with a smile.

"You need your sleep," he whispered, the hand on the back of her neck sliding over the curve of her shoulder and down her arm.

"I don't want to," she whispered back, entwining her fingers in his.

He gently but firmly turned her over so that her back was against his chest. Curling his body around hers and keeping her hand clasped in his, he kissed the back of her shoulder. "Sleep, Ivy," he insisted.

Feeling warm and safe in the cocoon he made around her, Ivy finally allowed herself to drift off. And for the first night in a very long time, it was a dreamless sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

Sam opened his door and headed downstairs as quietly as possible. He knew that the events of last night had been inevitable; nevertheless, he felt extremely awkward – and he hadn't even been involved in it. Sam wasn't too keen on finding out what Charlie would say once she got wind of what happened, and that was bound to be sooner rather than later. Besides, between Castiel and Charlie's unexpected lip-lock in the garage and then the obvious advancement of Dean and Ivy's relationship, it looked to Sam as if he was the fifth wheel on this crazy adventure.

On the plus side, though, Dean was going to be in a better mood.

Sam made himself breakfast and sat down to tuck in as he mulled over the task that lay ahead of them all. Clearly, Titania was a part of the problem plaguing the Griffins and, therefore, Pine Valley. She had a vendetta against the Griffins and clearly wasn't going to let anything stop her from getting what she wanted.

"So, how _does _one stop a Faerie?" he murmured to himself.

It looked like yet another long day of reading lay ahead of him, but at least time his research would have some kind of focus now.

* * *

Charlie woke up slowly, the edges of her vision unusually blurred. As she came to, she became aware of somebody else's presence in her room. Sitting bolt upright in her bed, she found herself floundering: the hand she had slid under her pillow to collect the knife she usually tucked there was empty.

"What the – " she sputtered, still groggy.

"You didn't think I'd let you sleep with a pillow under your knife, knowing how impulsive you are."

Charlie whirled around to see Castiel sitting on the other side of her bed in her armchair.

"You!" she stammered. "You! You…you _kissed _me last night!" She gasped, and clutched her bedsheets to her chest despite the fact that she was fully clothed. "_Did you do anything to me_?!"

Castiel looked at her, confused. "No. Why would I?" He paused, then shook his head. "See, this is why people don't understand you sometimes. You're tempestuous."

"Temp_..._argh!" Charlie exploded. "You're no less difficult, you know!"

"I'm sorry if my actions offended you. I was overcome by a strange feeling inside me."

Charlie stared. "What?"

"It was kind of like the feeling I had when I watched the video of the pi –"

"I don't need to hear it!" Charlie interrupted. "Oh, man."

* * *

Ivy woke up slowly and, once her eyes were fully open, she turned over and immediately smiled at the sight of Dean lying on his side next to her, his green eyes lighting up at the sight of her awake.

"Hey," he said, pushing a lock of hair away from her face and cupping her cheek in his hand.

She kissed his palm. "Sleep well?"

"Incredibly well." He propped himself up on his elbow to lean over her for a kiss. Ivy welcomed it gladly, breathing in his scent and carressing his stubbled cheek.

It had been so long since she'd last woken up this way, and it felt so good to lie in the warm circle of rumpled bedsheets and tangled limbs. As they kissed, Ivy instinctively shifted her body under Dean's, and he pulled away from her momentarily to look at her with a mischievous expression.

She raised an eyebrow at him and pushed him over onto his back. As she pinned his hands down above his head, Dean shut his eyes with a smile, fully intending to let her do whatever the hell she wanted to him.

* * *

"Cas," Charlie said, "what exactly are you doing here. In my room, I mean. All night."

"Making sure your soul healed properly," Cas said simply. But of course, the simple answer confused Charlie.

"My soul? What?"

Castiel pursed his lips. "You really don't know what kind of an effect Titania's power has on you?" he asked.

"I wasn't even aware she had any affect on me at all, other than the whole let-me-immobilise-you-so-i-can-torture-you bit," Charlie retorted.

"That's exactly it," Cas said. "When she exerts her magic on you, she has an effect on you. Internally. How could you not know? Do you even know _how _she does this to you?"

"Does what to me, exactly?" Charlie asked impatiently.

Cas shook his head, agitated and clearly worried now. "No, no," he murmured. "This is not good. Not good at all."

* * *

Dean entered the kitchen, shirtsleeves rolled up and a slight smile playing on his lips. Sam looked at his brother with a look that was halfway between amused and worried.

"What?" Dean asked, noticing the way Sam was looking at him.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," Sam said apologetically, awkwardly looking away.

Dean quickly put two and two together and realised what was making Sam so weird. "Oh, so you –"

"I didn't hear anything, if that's what you're about to ask," his brother interjected. "Nope. I just heard you coming up the stairs and I thought you were drunk, so I opened the door just in time to see you and Ivy getting all _Notebook _on the landing."

"Huh?"

"_The Notebook. _It's a movie."

"Sam, what have I told you about chick flicks? I _don't _want to know about them," Dean reminded his brother.

"Whatever, Dean," Sam laughed. "Look, I'm not one to judge about your…recreatonal activities – "

"'Recreational'?" Dean interrupted. "Do you think I'd do a one-night stand?"

"You've done loads of them before, Dean."

"I wouldn't do that to Ivy." The words were out of his mouth before he could really think about it.

Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother. "Okay, then," he said. "Well, in that case, what I was going to say doesn't really apply anymore. But, Dean, have you seriously thought about this entire situaiton? You do realise this is going to put you over the edge with Charlie?"

"Your point?"

"Dean, we have to co-operate here. I don't think she'll be too keen knowing you and Ivy…well.."

"Maybe Cas will loosen her up," Dean smirked.

"And have you forgotten that we, unlike the Griffins, are _not _the settling-down type of hunters?" Sam continued, ignoring Dean's remark. "Dean, once this job is done, we probably won't see them again. Either forever, or for a really, really long time. You do remember that, right?"

Dean pursed his lips. "Look, Sammy," he said, "I'm not going to justify myself to you. Like you said, you're not going to judge me, right? So don't. And let me deal with my own business."

* * *

The first thing Charlie noticed about Ivy when she made it down to the Motors that morning was that Ivy was singing along to the Hair Metal Hit Parade.

"'_Cause baby we'll be at the drive-in, the old man's Ford. Behind the bushes, until I'm screaming for more. Down the basement, lock the cellar door – and baby, talk dirty to me,_" Ivy sang into a wrench as she headbanged across the garage.

"Good morning!" Charlie yelled over the music. Ivy whirled around, saw her cousin, and grinned. She walked over to the stereo and turned it down a few notches.

"Hey. How are you feeling?" Ivy asked, twirling her wrench like a baton.

"Loads better. Evidently, you're walking on sunshine," Charlie laughed. "I hope you didn't pick up the wrong jar when you went to put sugar in your tea this morning."

Ivy laughed, clearly embarased about something. "Sorry," she said for no reason. "I'm just…I dunno. I feel great today."

Charlie stared at her cousin suddenly, an intent look on her face. It was no use trying to poke around in Ivy's mind – Ivy knew Charlie too well and had put up the walls. But Charlie didn't need to read Ivy's mind to know…

"…_you had sex_?!" she exploded a moment later.

"What?" Ivy asked.

"You! You look all…glowy! And you can't stop smiling! And you're singing along to Poison! You slept with somebody last night!" Charlie insisted, jabbing her finger in the air for accusatory emphasis. "When were you going to tell me this?"

"Um…"

"Who was it? Did you get distraught over my Angel-induced coma and call Skipper again?"

"Ew, what? God, no." _Never again, _Ivy added silently to herself.

"Then who?" Charlie insisted. "Who else is around here that you could have slept with?"

Ivy avoided Charlie's gaze momentarily, then sheepishly looked her cousin in the eye. "Now, don't get mad…"

* * *

Sam and Dean had the house to themselves, as both Griffins were down at the Motors that day. Once Sam and Dean filled each other in on the information they'd come into the night before, they began doing a honed search for information pertaining directly to anything in Faerie lore that would expose weaknesses they could potentially exploit to prevent Titania from taking Ivy.

"What's the plan, then?" Dean asked, shutting yet another leatherbound tome and stretching in his chair. "Do we draw Titania out, wait for her to show up again, or go looking for her?"

Sam smiled. "Don't forget that we have to discuss this hunt with the girls," he reminded Dean, "one of whom is apparently your new…attachment."

""Attachment'? Oh, wow, Sam, what on earth shoved itself so far up your –"

"What?" Sam cut him off. "I'm only trying to be delicate about this. Because clearly you can't."

Dean sighed, exasperated, and staring out the window, said, "Look, just…" He trailed off.

"Just what?" Sam taunted, then realising almost instantly that something outside had caught Dean's attention. "Dean?"

"It's Cúchulainn," Dean said, moving towards the window. "Sam, he looks…he looks hurt."

* * *

"I can't believe this," Charlie said for the umpteenth time. "You and _Dean_? Of all the people you could have chosen, you chose _him_?"

Ivy laughed. "What do you mean, 'of all the people'?" she said. "He's just about the only one around here who I can possibly be attracted to anymore. Every other guy our age is either already married, with another girl, or too much of a good friend."

Charlie rolled her eyes. "I would have been able to understand if it was Skipper," she said.

"Jesus, Charlie," Ivy giggled as she walked over to the sink in the garage. "Never again."

Ivy's phone beeped and, after washing off her hands, she took it out of her pocket and took a look at it. Seeing that she had a message from Dean, she smiled to herself and unlocked the phone to read it,

"_Your house-pooka is back. He's hurt."_

"Charlie!"

Luckily, Skipper Delahunty was available and willing to take over the Motors for the day, and because everyone in Pine Valley knew what the Griffins got up to when they had to leave anything abruptly, he was completely understanding of why they called to tell him he needed to come in and reopen.

Charlie and Ivy rode their motorcycles in single file back to Griffin's Clearing, the same thoughts racing through their heads. Cúchulainn, wounded? What had happened to him?

Sam was on the front porch waiting for them when they roared up to the house. Pulling off their helmets and discarding them on the porch, the Griffins raced inside to the living room, where Dean and Cas were keeping an eye on the _púca. _

Dean rose to his feet when they burst in, and Ivy went immediately into his arms. "Is he alright?" she asked, clutching his forearms and fighting back tears of worry.

"I don't know," Dean replied. "He just walked up to the house looking like this."

The _púca'_s dog form was in bad shape. The dark stains on the ratty old bedsheets Dean had found in the linen closet told Ivy and Charlie that he had been bleeding badly; fresher, brighter spots, fewer in number but still present, told them he was still bleeding in some places. Three claw-like lacerations severed the skin and fur around his snout, standing out in a sickening, blackish-red trio.

Charlie knelt by Cúchulainn and he looked up at her with eyes full of pleading and pain. "We have to do something," she said briskly, straightening up. "I'll go see if we have anymore old linen to bind his wounds."

Ivy blt her lip. "Castiel? Can you communicate at all with him?"

"Yes, I can." Castiel's voice was grave. "He told me...he told me that Titania's minions did this to him."

"That _bitch,_" Ivy spat. "Why the _hell _would she do this to him?"

"He won't say."

Charlie returned, holding a bowl of warm water she'd mixed with some rubbing alcohol as well as some linen strips and a few towels. She and Ivy knelt by the _púca _and began to sponge off the blood on his many wounds, working slowly so that they would not cause him more pain. Meanwhile, Sam – who had disppeared yet again into the reading room after hearing who had hurt Cúchculainn – came back with a small, dark red leather-bound tome in his hands.

"I knew I'd seen it in here earlier," he said. "Listen to this. If a _púca _or any other Fey-dweller is harmed on this side of the veil by another creature of the Fey who used magic or trickery to inflict the damage, it can only be healed in a Faerie ring."

Ivy and Charlie froze, staring at each other with horror visibly written on their faces.

"We are so fucked," Charlie said.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

"No, you're not," Castiel said assuringly. "He is too weak to go by himself and perform the ritual. I know humans normally cannot cross into a Faerie ring without risking potential harm, immediate or pending, so I will go with you and offer my protection."

"Does your Angel mojo work inside a Faerie _ráth_?" Ivy asked.

"It should."

"We're coming too," Dean piped up. "Just in case."

"If my powers don't work on them, your sawed-off won't, either," Castiel argued.

"The least we can do is try to give them as much protection as we can, Cas," Dean explained. "I'm not going to let them go without us."

Nobody had to ask why Dean was so insistent about going along: his messianic complex coupled with what had transpired between him and Ivy the previous night was putting his inner wannabe superhero into overdrive.

Ivy looked up at him, her worry for his safety temporarily overriding her worry for Cúchulainn. "You've seen what she's capable of doing," she said, referring to the Faerie Queen. "She'll hurt you, Dean."

"If it means being able to distract her, then it doesn't matter."

* * *

"Can I ask you something?" Sam inquired as he and Charlie headed to the garage to prepare the necessary tools and weapons for their mission.

"Anytime. What's up?"

"You call your…house-_púca _'Cúchulainn,'" Sam began. "In my research, I read about an ancient Irish hero of the same name." He paused.

"And you were wondering if ours is him?" Ivy guessed.

"Well, yeah. I mean, yours is a Fey-creature, right?"

"Cúchulainn wasn't one of the Fey," Ivy said. "He was just an ordinary mortal who happened to come into some really special powers during his youth. We call our _púca _by the same name because that's what Ivy wanted to call him."

"You said he's been with your family for generations," Sam said, "so wouldn't he already have a name?"

"Not really. Not all Fey are keen on sharing with us their real names. He's exactly the same. When Ivy first visited us here years ago, though, she insisted on calling him that instead of what my dad was calling him."

"Which was…?"

"In an effort to make him seem like a real pet, my dad was referring to him as 'Dodger,' after the Artful Dodger in Dickens. Because Cúchulainn has this habit of appropriating shiny objects for his little treasure pile."

Sam laughed. "They really do like their gold and silver, don't they?"

Charlie grinned. "He brings some stuff back every once in a while," she added, "but not often."

"Have you ever seen him in his true form?"

Charlie shook her head. "For the ritual he has to change back into his human-type form. Part of his…well, 'servitude' seems too strong a word, but he did willingly bind himself to the family…anyway, part of that deal requires him to stay in the form of a wolfhound. But he needs to be in a form capable of performing the ritual."

"I read too that they're most commonly found in the form of a horse," Sam remarked, "but he chose to be a dog?"

"Well, how many horses have you seen inside somebody's house?" Charlie laughed.

"But why disguise himself, if everyone in Pine Valley is aware of the Fey's presence here?"

Charlie pursed her lips. "Not everyone is as…accommodating of the truth," she said vaguely.

* * *

There was a knock on Ivy's bedroom door.

"Come in," she called out, rummaging through her dresser. She pulled out a black tank top and pulled it over her head as she turned around. It was Dean.

He smiled. "I wish there was enough time right now for me to take that right off you," he said mischievously, crossing the room and pulling her into his arms.

She laughed, tilting her head up for a kiss, which Dean happily gave. After a moment, she pulled away and leaned against him, her head on his chest and her arms tight around his waist.

"Are you afraid?" he asked her gently, stroking her hair.

Ivy nodded. "A little bit. Dealing with Titania is never a picnic."

"So you've met with her before now?"

"Yes. When I first arrived here about five years ago, she tried to go back on the terms of the deal. " Ivy paused. "She tried again three years later."

Dean thought long and hard for a moment. "Ivy," he said as an idea dawned on him, "how long ago did you say you started having your visions?"

"My visions? About…well, two years ago I think." She looked up at him. "Why?"

"And the last time Titania came to you was about a year before?"

"Yeah."

"What happened then?

Ivy frowned, pulling out of his arms. "Dean," she said, "does that really matter?"

Dean could tell that this particular memory was difficult for Ivy, but he pressed on. "Ivy, I wouldn't ask you unless it was important," he assured her. "Please. It could mean a lot to this case."

Ivy turned away from Dean and strode over to her closet. She opened it up and pulled out a light sweater. "When I came here," she began, her voice wavering slightly, "my parents had just died in Dublin. Charlie's mom and dad – Aunt Danielle and Uncle Jack – took me in, gave me a home, a job, and a new life. Titania paid us a visit. She wanted me as her payment for the deal."

She buttoned up her sweater and turned to face Dean, her eyes shining with tears she refused to let fall. "The first time, when I first arrived, she left us alone after they refused to give me up. The second time, two years later…well…when they still wouldn't give me up, Titania killed them."

Dean's jaw tightened. "And now your powers have been working for two years, and she's back again. That fucking bitch."

* * *

"Hold up," Dean said, striding into the garage. Castiel, Charlie, and Sam all looked up at him, quizzical. Ivy was hot on his heels, indignant.

"Dean!" she said sharply. "Dean, this is ridiculous."

"We've got to modify our plans a bit here," Dean explained, ignoring Ivy. "Titania's after Ivy. She's using Cúchulainn as bait to get Ivy into the Faerie ring so that she can take her."

"That won't be a problem," Castiel reminded him. "I'm going with you. Ivy will be protected, Dean."

"Not good enough," Dean argued. "What if Titania brings some more powerful Faeries with her, huh? What if they're able to get her?"

"What are you suggesting then, Dean?" Charlie demanded. "That we all go on to the Faerie _ráth _and leave Ivy here on her own, unprotected? Oh, that's smart."

"I'm not saying that," Dean shot back. "I'm just saying we need to put Ivy somewhere secure. Back here. While we go to the Faerie ring."

Charlie looked livid. "Do you realise," she said menacingly, "that there is no place here that Titania can't get to? Do you know what she did the last time she came for Ivy?" Her voice was tight with emotion.

Dean looked at her, the smallest detectable trace of compassion in his eyes almost overshadowed by the grimness of his face. "I do," he said gruffly.

"Then why are you insisting we leave her here?" Charlie hissed.

Castiel and Sam exchanged a look. "We might be able to do something for her," Sam said slowly. "We can put her in a protection circle."

"A protection circle?" Charlie repeated. "Do you know how long it takes to set one of those up? Cúchulainn is badly hurt, and he needs to get to that _ráth _as fast as possible."

"I could hide her behind an Enochian shield," Castiel mused. He thought a moment longer, then shook his head. "Nope. That only works on Angels. Good one, Castiel."

Charlie threw her hands up in the air. "Great," she sputtered.

"Excuse me." Ivy's voice cut in right before an argument exploded. "Excuse me, I don't think anyone here is taking into consideration what I want to happen."

They all looked at her.

"Cúchulainn needs us," Ivy said. "After everything he's done for our family, going with him – and all of you – to the Faerie ring is the least I can do to repay him for his services to our family." She looked at Dean. "I appreciate your concern for my safety, Dean, but you have to realise that I'm not helpless. I've dealt with Titania before – you haven't. If we all work together we can get Cúchulainn back into shape and protect each other without wasting time."

After a moment, Dean finally backed down. "All right," he agreed reluctantly. "But if Titania makes a single move for you, you run – got it?"

"Dean, we'll be fine."

He wished he could believe her.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

"The nearest Faerie ring is Ó Gríobhtha's Ring," Charlie said, pointing at a spot on the bottom right-hand corner on her map of Pine Valley, which was spread out on the hood of her car. "We're going to take Griffin Trail up. It's about nine miles."

"Can we drive up, or are we going on foot?" Sam asked.

"We can drive up partway, and continue on from foot for about two miles," Charlie replied. "We also have a litter for Cúchulainn, so two of us will have to carry him."

"That's fine," Sam said. "What else do we need to know?"

"Once we get to the Faerie ring, they'll be notified of our presence," Ivy said. "Essentially, we'll be invading their space, and they'll come after us. We might be lucky because of Cúchulainn. But he's not exactly in their favour, so they may not give a rat's ass."

"That's where Castiel comes in," Charlie added, lookling at him. "Obviously, the fact that you're an Angel holds some power over Titania, so they shouldn't give us too much trouble. She won't be able to use too much magic on us for fear of you."

Ivy nodded in agreement, but walked over to the cabinet where they stashed their weapons. She lifted a wooden chest off a slow shelf and brought it over. Setting it down at their feet, she opened it up.

"Pure iron," she said, taking out a long rod that looked like a honeycomb spoon, "blessed by Cardinal Cullen, and rubbed regularly with salt." She presented it to Dean.

"What the heck is that?" Dean asked, taking it from her.

"A footman's mace," Ivy replied. She gave a second one to Sam, then replaced the box in the closet. She rooted around a short while, then returned to their huddle holding two club-like instruments. She gave one to Charlie.

"And those are…?" Sam asked.

"Hurls," Charlie explained. "In Ireland, they're used to play hurling, which is an ancient Celtic sport. These ones are made of petrified oak from a sacred bog."

"We're ready," Ivy said. "Let's go."

* * *

The sun was just beginning to set as they arrived on the edge of Ó Gríobhtha's Ring. Sam and Dean carefully set down the litter carrying Cúchulainn, and the _púca _looked up at them with wide eyes – as if it trusted them.

_Wish I could tell what it's thinking, _Dean thought.

"So, how does this work?" Sam whispered.

Charlie and Ivy knelt to the ground and started to carefully remove the dressings on Cúchulainn's wounds. "We'll let Cúchulainn go into the ring first. Spread out around the edges and we'll all step in on my signal," Charlie instructed as Ivy soothed the _púca, _who was whining softly from the pain.

"Entering at the same time from different points lifts the magical shield around the ring instead of puncturing it," Ivy explained.

"So that the magic of Fey doesn't keep leaking through," Sam reasoned.

"Exactly." Ivy stroked Cúchulainn's head soothingly. "It's all right, boy. Go on."

Cúchulainn struggled to his feet and brushed the uninjured side of his head affectionately against Ivy's leg first, then Charlie's. They waited a few moments, and then the four hunters and the Angel spread out, as quietly as possible, around the perimeter of the ring.

Dean had learned over time that on certain hunts, he didn't have to worry so much about Sam as he used to. This was one of them: compared to what they'd fought against in the last few years, a few Faeries – even pissed off Queens with a death threat on somebody's head – were pretty easy. The person Dean was worrying about was Ivy.

It wasn't just because she was the one Titania was after, and it wasn't just because he had developed deep feelings for her in a very short amount of time. The fact that her visions struck her unexpectedly, and that they seemed to have a very intense and lasting effect on her, was what worried him most. At their very first meeting, she'd fallen twelve feet out of a tree because of one, and the two visions she had after that had distressed her both mentally and physically to the point of tears and exhaustion.

The last thing they needed during their encounter with the Faeries tonight was for Ivy to be struck with another one.

_Don't worry, Dean. She'll be okay._

_Charlie? _He was startled to realise that he was a lot more used to it than he'd thought.

_Who else, doofus? _Even in his mind, he could hear the teasing note in her words. _Do you want me to tell her anything for you?_

_Just tell her to be careful, and let her know I've got her back. _

A moment later, Charlie replied, _She says thanks._

Somehow, Dean was pretty sure that wasn't all Ivy had to say about that.

_Everyone in place? _Charlie asked a moment later. _All compass points covered?_

A scattershot response echoed through Dean's head. He grinned, impressed by Charlie's ability to control her powers so meticulously.

_Dean, Ivy says she can see you choking your mace. Loosen up your grip and hold it a little lower._

_Jesus, can't you girls leave a guy alone for five seconds?_

The ring was a roughly circular clearing, at the centre of which stood a wizened, stunted-looking tree. Its branches splayed out and folded back onto themselves; its trunk was a twisted column of roughened bark. Crowned by dark, curling leaves, it seemed to give off a strange luminescence in the fading light. Cúchulainn made his way slowly through the ring to the tree. When he reached it, he bent his head down towards its base, and suddenly his form began to change. As he morphed back into his true form, an opalescent light engulfed him. It became so brilliant that they could soon barely make out his form within the sphere.

_Now!_

The four hunters and Castiel broke the forest line and entered the ring, closing in on Cúchulainn until they were with him around the tree. Ivy and Charlie felt the slightest shift in the air, as if the breeze had suddenly changed direction. Castiel sensed it too, and although he knew it would do no good, he uttered a prayer out of force of habit. They all knew the Faeries would be upon them quickly, and that Cúchulainn's status as a rogue wouldn't help their case.

Ivy and Charlie were there because of Cúchulainn. Sam and Castiel were there because they wanted answers. And that had been Dean's reason for going, too. But now he was here for Ivy, and here to lay a good hard one on as many of the sparkly little sons of bitches he possibly could. For her, and for what they'd done to her family.

Cúchulainn emerged from the sphere of light in his true body. Like Titania the night before, he was tall and slender and pale, but his hair grazed his shoulders in coal-black curls that framed a finely-chiselled face from which a pair of wide green eyes gazed in wonder around him.

"Dude. Cover up," Dean muttered, focusing his gaze on the far side of the clearing and throwing Cúchulainn the spare change of clothes Ivy had told him to bring along.

"Thank you, Dean," the _púca_ murmured. He began to dress.

"You don't look like how the books say you do," Sam bleated.

Cúchulainn smiled. "Like all Faeries, I have a true form," he said. "The drawings in your books are just a few of nearly infinite possibilities."

Charlie caught Ivy's eye. _He's kind of hot._

_Yeah. If you're going for a death metal look I guess._

Buttoning up his shirt, Cúchulainn looked at them, clearly amused. Charlie's face flushed when she realised he'd heard the exchange. Ivy giggled.

"So, are we done here or what?" Sam asked. "Cúchulainn looks perfectly healed over."

The _púca _looked down at himself, considering his fitness. "It feels like it's worked properly," he said. He looked up and caught Ivy's gaze. "And while I am flattered that you chose Cúchulainn as my name," he continued, "I must correct you at last. My real name is Faolán."

" 'Wolf,'" Ivy laughed. "No wonder."

"If you don't mind, we should be moving," Cas said briskly, "before we find ourselves in the company of Faolán's…less benevolent kin."

* * *

They made their way back down the trail in relative silence and several paces apart, with Charlie at the front of their column and Castiel bringing up the rear with Sam. Faolán trailed a little bit behind Charlie, and Dean and Ivy walked in the middle together. Twilight had descended upon them and the light was fading fast; they were all more than a little eager to get back to the cars as fast as possible.

About a mile away from the _ráth, _Faolán stopped abruptly. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks, each of them tensing slightly as the anticipation of a confrontation engulfed them all. Dean moved instinctively closer to Ivy, relieved to note at the back of his mind that she didn't move away from him when his arm brushed against hers. Their eyes locked briefly, but long enough for Dean to note the look in her eyes. He quickly glanced at Charlie, whose terrified expression confirmed his theory.

"Sam, Cas," Dean hissed. "We've got company."

"How very observant of you, Dean."

They all whirled around to face Titania standing in the shadow of the trees at the edge of the path.

"Clever, by the way, girls," she continued as she stepped out of the shadow of the trees. "We almost missed you because of your little trick entering the clearing. Very sharp." Titania paused, then smiled maliciously. "Then again, you do have it in you."

"What do you want, Titania?" Charlie snapped, her hurl up over her shoulder like a Louisville slugger, ready to take a swing.

Titania walked around them in a circle, regarding each one of them in turn with her piercing gaze. "I want my payment, Charlotte," she said, stopping in front of Ivy. "I want your little cousin."

"Don't you dare touch her!" Dean snarled, swiftly moving between the Faerie Queen and Ivy.

Titania looked at him with disdain, but said nothing.

"You'll have to go through me too," Faolán added, coming to Dean's side.

"Faolán. You worthless carcass," Titania greeted, her fake smile showing all her teeth.

"Titania." The _púca_'s voice was tight with hatred as he moved to stand between Dean and Titania. "You heartless bitch."

Dean could sense the impending Faerie showdown and moved backwards, herding Ivy back towards the other edge of the path.

Titania came right up to Faolán, her smooth brow furrowed with a frown of undeniable loathing. They stared each other down, Titania's amber eyes flaring furiously with rage as she stared into Faolán's steady green gaze.

Darkness descended.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

"If you know what's good for you, you'll step aside," Titania warned. "You're out of the _ráth, _Faolán. Our laws do not protect you here."

"Likewise," Faolán said simply.

Titiana glowered at him.

"You're not getting Ivy," Faolán continued. "Not now, not ever. A deal is a deal, Titania. This might not be the original deal, but you still made it. Abide by it." He paused, then added emphatically, "_Abide by our laws, _as you are supposed to even beyond our world."

Titania laughed. "Aren't you forgetting something, Faolán?" She smirked. "Silly me. Of course you are. You're forgetting that I am of the higher Fey. You believe all you want that you can stop me. Believe all you want in the old ways."

She paused, then laughed as she recognised the look of confusion on Faolán's face. "You've been a house-pet too long, Faolán," she said with evil glee. "Don't you know what's been going on in our homeland?" Titania's voice grew colder and bitter. "We've been fighting a war amongst ourselves. And we're on the verge of destroying ourselves and our home."

"Then go back to wherever you came from and finish it already," Dean said.

Titania glowered at him. "I could squash you like a fly," the Faerie Queen spat. "But death is too good for you, Dean. So I won't kill you – yet." She tossed back her golden hair and stood straighter. "As for _why _we don't just finish each other off already," Titania continued, "we Faeries have our own desire to survive, too, you know. And some of us deserve to survive more than others."

"That is not up to you to decide," Faolán interjected. "It was never our right to turn on one another. We follow the natural order, Titania. We _must._"

"We were already forced out of this world once before," Titania reminded him sharply. "We retreated beyond the veil – under the ground, into the caves, even beyond our very own _ráths._ And that was by a _worthy _opponent. By whom are we being pushed out now, Faolán? By these pitiful, spineless humans. The same humans who once _worshipped _us are now _destroying _us."

"What do you want with Ivy and Charlie?" Sam demanded.

"They're precious to my people for oh so many reasons," Titania replied in a sing-song voice. "To all of the Fey, they are marvelous girls. But to those on_ my _side…oh, to us, they are priceless." Titania paused briefly. "Especially Ivy."

"Leave them alone," Castiel commanded.

"Stay out of it, Angel-boy," Titania retorted. "This does not concern you."

"Yes, it does."

"If I could, I would slap you into next Sunday," Titania hissed.

"Empty threats are a waste of words," Faolán chided.

"Why is Ivy so important you?" Dean interjected, attempting to steer the conversation back on track.

Titania looked at him, quizzical. "Why, you don't know?" she asked, feigning shock. "But of course you wouldn't know anything either about your little darling, would you, Dean?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean growled.

"Dean," Ivy cut in, her tone slightly pleading.

"And look, _now _she wants to explain," Titania continued. "You didn't think of telling him _before _you slept with him, Ivy? Really? Isn't that a bit…unfair?"

Dean looked over his shoulder, his eyes straining in the dense darkness of the woods to see her face. He could sense that she was frightened. "Ivy?" he asked softly.

Ivy bit her lip, her hands curling into fists

Titania laughed quietly. "Ivy," she trilled, "what's wrong? Cat got your tongue all of a sudden? Don't want Dean to know your family's dirty little secrets?"

"Shut up," Ivy said through gritted teeth.

Titania shook her head. "No, no, I don't think so. In fact, let's shed some light on this entire thing." She snapped her fingers and dozens of tiny orbs suddenly burst into light all around them, illuminating the path.

"Ivy, what's she babbling about?" Dean asked, turning completely to face her in the Faerie lights.

Castiel moved behind Ivy and put his hand on her shoulder. Ivy drew herself up defensively, tossing her hair defiantly over her shoulder and levelling Titania with a stare. But Dean could tell that she was scared nearly out of her mind.

"Ivy. Come on," he insisted, his voice gentle but firm.

Charlie broke in. "We don't know what she's talking about," she said stridently, moving to stand by her cousin. "Titania's lying, like she always does."

The conviction in her voice did not escape anyone's notice, including the Faerie Queen's.

"Oh, this keeps getting better and better," Titania said happily a she realised that Charlie spoke the truth. "So, Ivy, tell us – did you hope your secret would die with your mammy and da? With your Auntie Danny and Uncle Jack?"

Ivy exploded like a pack of dynamite. "You _fucking _bitch," she screamed, lunging past Dean towards Titania, her hurl swinging in an arc up over her shoulder. Dean threw himself out of the way entirely, suddenly fearing for his life. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sam, neither of them confused enough, thankfully, to forget that they were armed with Faerie-resistant weapons.

Charlie, on the other hand, had dropped her hurl and was struggling against Castiel's restraining hold. She, too, was screaming bloody murder. Ivy, though, was immobilised in mid-swing, completely motionless except for her eyes, which darted around frantically as she tried to sort out what had just happened to her. Her mouth was frozen open in a scream of rage, and as soon as it dawned on her that she was suspended and helpless, her eyes blazed a hateful trail into Titania's face.

"Let her go," Faolán said, his tone grave. "You know what this will do to her."

"She's not made of glass, pet," Titania snapped. "Shut up."

Faolán grasped at his throat, his voice silenced by her magic.

"That's better." Titania stood right in front of Ivy, her gaze never leaving the younger Griffin's face even though she addressed Dean and Sam. "Many bargains were made between me and this family," she began. "First, one to escape the hunger and disease of the Great Famine. Then one to find fortune in America. Then another to make fertile a barren womb. Shall I go on?" She ran a finger down Ivy's cheek, and Ivy's eyes registered her disgust and horror at the action.

"You see, boys," Titania continued, "while you dealt with Demons in your time, the Griffins have dealt exclusively with Faeries. It works more or less on the same principle as a crossroads deal. You summon one of my attendants and make a deal, and I hold the contract. It's fairly simple. But you see, I can modify the terms of my contracts as my clients see fit. The only catch is that after a point, you need to up the ante."

Sam and Dean exchanged bewildered looks. Charlie, however, was still raising as much hell as she could in Castiel's iron grip.

"So what are you saying about our family, then, you bitch?" she yelled.

"Charlotte, dear little Charlotte," Titania murmured. "You certainly don't know your family history as well as you say. But that doesn't matter, does it? All that matters is protecting Ivy. You don't know why, but you have to protect her because that's what your daddy told you to do."

Dean's heart felt like it was being wrung inside his chest upon hearing Titania's words. The situation she was describing to Charlie was the exact same one he'd been in his whole life: first because of John Winchester insisting that he protect Sammy at all times until his untimely death, and then later because of Dean's own guilt and hero complex kicking into serious overdrive. And it wasn't just the shared experience; it was the way Titania spoke so mockingly of their filial piety.

Charlotte tossed an insult at Titania in Gaelic, and Titania simply laughed. "The number of times I've heard your kind say that to me," she sighed. "Do you think it affects me at all anymore?"

"Shut the _fuck _up," Dean bellowed, his temper snapping as he sprang into action. He wanted to beat her into the ground.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, but Dean paid him no mind as he swung his mace in a horizontal arc

Titania dodged the swing of his iron mace easily, but the horror on her face was enough to encourage him to stand his ground between her and Ivy once more. But if Dean was not discouraged, neither was Titania. She backed away, but remained composed and regal before him.

"The wheels are in motion, Dean," Titania said quietly, her voice a menacing purr. "They have always been in motion. There is nothing you can do to stop this from running its course."

"Stop _what, _exactly?" Sam demanded.

Titania looked at him. "The Fey are on the brink of destruction. One side must win if we dare hope to continue existing," she said sharply. "We are at a stalemate. The balance must shift for a victor to emerge. And I will make that shift, using Ivy. And perhaps, to an extent, Charlie. But mainly Ivy."

"Why?" Dean asked.

"That's what I've been trying to explain this whole time," Titania said sweetly. "Dean, the little Griffin girls are bound to me through the wheelings and dealings of their entire family. Eoin Ó Gríobhtha had asked for far too much by the time he came to Pine Valley. He was a fool to think I would ever forget his agreement to pay me in full one day. In blood."

Dean and Sam exchanged a horrified look. Charlie, on the other hand, was sedated entirely by the shock crashing over her as Titania spoke.

"Like I said, I hold multiple contracts signed by various members of the Griffin clan," Titania said. "Charlie's father was in danger of losing her to a rare brain disease that affects only children. In exhange for her life, he allowed me to bestow upon her that incredible talent of hers. You know, the one that allows her to see into your mind and speak to you through thoughts."

"What?" Charlie gasped, gripping Castiel as she swooned. She gritted her teeth. _Keep it together, girl._

Titania nodded, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched ever so slightly. "All I wanted to do was use Charlie to…keep tabs on somebody else," the Faerie Queen explained. "You see, Jack Griffin's cousin Arthur had managed to somehow…shield himself and his entire little family from my sphere of vision. And I needed to keep an eye on...somebody very…very…special." She cupped Ivy's cheek in her hand in a shockingly tender manner.

After a moment, she spoke again. "You see, Arthur Griffin wanted a family, but his wife couldn't bear him any children. He married her anyway, because he knew that I could…well, that I could help. And I did."

Titania turned to face the others. "Now remember what I said about having to up the ante after a certain point?" she asked rhetorically. "With Charlie, I only wanted a small part of her, and so I only had to give a small part of myself to her."

"What do you mean?" Castiel interrupted sharply.

Sam felt a chill run through his blood. "You…you put your blood into her?"

"That's right," Titania said with a smile. "Some of us are, after all, lesser demons. Just like Azazel did to you, Sam, so I did to Charlie, because I can. I'm one of the ones who fell with Lucifer and became suspended in midair. I'm not into pyrotechnics, though. Far too brazen for my taste. No, Charlie got to stay with Mommy and Daddy for twenty-five years – just according to plan."

Charlie felt her blood turn to ice. In a matter of minutes, Titania had managed to turn her entire life upside down. She could barely hear Titania's words through the sound of her blood surging in her ears.

"What did you do to Ivy, then, you goddamn bitch?" Dean demanded.

"Ah, yes. Save the best for last, as I like to say," Titania trilled. "Ivy is much more a part of me than she realises, or would care to be." She looked into Ivy's eyes, wide with fear yet still glinting with defiant hatred.

"What our dear little Ivy here hasn't told any of you," she continued slowly, "is that I restored life to her mother's dead, empty womb. But I can't make anything out of nothing. I'm nowhere near a god. Charlie only had to drink my blood to be cured. But Ivy's mother? I had to put my blood directly into her veins."

A heavy silence fell upon them as she paused to let that sink in.

"So, you see," Titania said, soft and slow, "Ivy's mother became part Faerie. Just enough to restore life to her, because we are very, very fertile creatures. And that makes Ivy part Faerie, too. And now, I've come to collect my dues from her father's little deal. Because, my dear sweet child –" here she released Ivy from suspension and let her fall to her knees "– you hold the balance of power in you. Just enough Faerie blood mixing through that human heart of yours to make you powerful enough to win this war for me."

Castiel released Charlie and stood in front of Titania. "Leave us," he commanded.

"Oh, don't worry, Castiel." Titania was already moving towards the forest line. "I'm not taking her tonight. She's not ready yet. But she will be, very soon."

She disappeared into the night, and the tiny Faerie lights died.

They stood in darkness, the silence punctuated only by a breeze rustling the leaves above and Faolán's hoarse coughing as his voice returned to him. Ivy was still on her knees where Titania had left her, her arms wrapped around herself as she rocked back and forth in a stunned silence.

Charlie went over to her cousin. "Ivy," she whispered, wrapping her arms around her. "Ivy, don't worry. We'll figure out a way."

Ivy didn't say anything in response. She felt more exhausted than she'd ever felt in her life. Her head was spinning, and the edges of her sight grew rapidly fuzzy and dark. Sleep. Sleep was what she wanted now, more than anything.

Charlie's voice echoed in her ears as she slipped out of consciousness. "Ivy? Ivy? Come on, hang in there! _Ivy_!"


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

Faolán laid Ivy down in her bed gently. Charlie rummaged through her cousin's drawers, trying to focus on finding Ivy some clean, comfortable pyjamas because otherwise, she'd lose her mind.

"Charlie," Faolán said quietly, sitting on the foot of Ivy's bed.

"Yes?"

"We need to talk."

Charlie sighed and came to Ivy's bedside to begin about the task of undressing and redressing her cousin. "It's late, Faolán," she argued feebly.

"Charlie, Ivy's slipped from consciousness. She's not in any ordinary sleep. She's in a magically-induced coma."

Charlie stared at him. That was probably the last thing she needed to hear.

* * *

"A magically-induced coma?" Dean repeated.

"Yes." Faolán paced in front of the fireplace, wringing his hands. "When Titania suspended Ivy back on the trail, Ivy fought so hard against it that her mind…broke in some places. And when that happened, Titania's magic entered Ivy's mind."

"Like what happened with me the other night?" Charlie asked.

"Yes, something like that. But you're part Faerie through ritual, and minimally so at that," Faolán said. "Ivy is part Faerie by blood, and much more so than you. Her humanity has fought against the magic and suppressed it for most of her life. The shock of coming into contact with so much magic on such a deep level has pulled her consciousness out of this world."

Dean downed the last half of his glass of whiskey and poured himself another. "Where is she, then?" he asked brashly. "Somewhere in a dream land? Can we get her back? Snap her back into consciousness here somehow?"

"Yeah, like we did with Bobby that one time with African dream root," Sam agreed.

Faolán frowned. "She's not in a dream land, exactly. She's trapped on the other side of the veil."

"She's over there?" Sam exclaimed.

Faolán nodded.

Charlie disappeared for a moment and came back with one of the large, dark-coloured leatherbound tomes from the reading room. She placed in on the coffee table and knelt down, flipping quickly through the pages.

"She's not in the _Sidhe,_" she said to no-one in particular.

"That is the part of the Otherworld where we live," Faolán explained. "Very few outside of the Gentry have ever been there. The ancient bards and poets were the only ones who had the ability to see it."

"Here," Charlie exclaimed, jabbing her finger at a page in the book. "She's here."

Sam, Dean, and Castiel croweded around her to take a look at the page. It was a map of sorts showing the Fey-World, and Charlie's finger lay on a section over which was wirtten _Tir na mBeo._

"The Land of the Living," she translated. "She's got to be there…unless she's in _Tir na nÓg _ - the Land of Eternal Youth."

"She would be in _Tir na mBeo _first, yes," Faolán agreed. "If she wanders long, she will eventually come upon _Tir na nÓg._"

Charlie bit her lip and raised her eyes to Faolán. "This is going to be a bitch of a mission, isn't it?

"Why?" Dean asked. "Faolán, dude, beam me up there. I've been there once before. I think I can handle it."

"Excuse me?" Charlie said.

"Dean got abducted by Faeries a while back," Sam explained.

"Yeah. So. Come on, Faolán. Do your Tinkerbell thing."

"I am not Tinkerbell. And I can't," Faolán said tersely.

"Why the hell not?" Dean asked.

"Well, for one," Castiel jumped in, "she's physically here but mentally and spiritually _there._ She's in the spirit world, Dean. We can't enter unless we are brought or pulled there."

Dean smoldered in silence. He refused to believe what he was hearing.

Castiel continued, addressing Faolán this time. "And then there's the issue of the time difference, isn't there?"

Faolán nodded gravely. "We have no idea how much time has passed for her over there between her collapse and now," he said, "and if we do manage to follow her, we have no idea in what time _we _will end up."

Charlie collapsed against the couch, her hands over her face. "Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck _fuck_."

Dean sank into the corner of the couch, his hand clenched around his whiskey tumbler. "There's got to be a way," he muttered. "There just has to be."

"We'll hit the books right away," Sam assured him. "There's a lot of stuff in that reading room. We'll find a way."

"We have to," Charlie said quietly, removing her hands from her face. Her blue eyes shone with tears. "We have to."

* * *

Dean was incensed.

Pacing on the front porch, Dean was trying to make sense of it all. Castiel was an Angel. An Angel who had pulled him out of the pit. And now that same Angel was telling him that he couldn't get into the Otherworld? And what about Faolán? He _was _one of the Fey, and even he was refusing to go back. What the hell kind of logic was that?

Frustrated, he kicked at a post out of desperation to somehow relieve the anger inside him.

"Dammit," he said into the night. "Dammit!"

* * *

"Dean, you're insane," Sam bleated.

"I am not," Dean snapped, scanning the bookshelves. "What kind of hunter library wouldn't have a few spellbooks lying around, huh?"

"I'm not saying that expecting to find one is insane," Sam explained. "I'm saying that summoning one to us is insane. Especially since we've _already _got one."

"No offense to Faolán," Dean said, "but he seems pretty complacent about all this."

"Well, he's kind of in servitude to the family, isn't he? That probably comes with some strings attached, and judging by the way he was insistent on Titania following the rules I'd be willing to bet that he's not about to go breaking rules himself."

"Exactly." Dean stepped up onto a low stool by the shelves in the far left-hand corner of the room and scanned the gold-printed titles carefully. "We need a Faerie with more firepower, Sammy."

Sam grabbed Dean's arm and pulled him down off the stool. "Since when has summoning ever worked out for us, Dean?" he demanded, his voice suddenly sharp and emphatic. "Since when has making deals worked out for us? And, by the sound of it, the Griffins?"

"Look, if there's no way for us to follow her into the Otherworld to get her back, then we've got to work from the other way around!" Dean retorted, pulling his arm out of Sam's grasp. "So, you can sit here and lecture me, Sam, or you can help me call up a Faerie to bring her back."

Sam hesitated, noting the intense look of pain and anger flashing in Dean's eyes. The last time he'd seen that look in his brother's eyes was the last time they had seen Ben and Lisa, when Dean had asked Castiel to completely whitewash their memories so that they wouldn't know him.

"I know you want her back, Dean," Sam started gently. "We all want to get her back. We all want to save her. But you have got to stop trying to do this all on your own."

"I'm willing to do what it takes to get her out of the Otherworld and back into _this _world. What about you, Sammy, huh?"

Sam's face darkened. "That's not fair to say, Dean. For starters, don't you realise that this has devastated Charlie?"

Dean looked away, knowing full well that Sam was right but remaining unwilling to budge. "Sam, I am going to get her back. And I'll do whatever it takes – with or without your help."

"Maybe it doesn't have to involve summoning a Faerie," Sam continued. "Maybe we can find a loophole somewhere in a curse-breaking spell or something. I've been looking into that and there are some promising leads."

"Sammy, how the _hell _is any of this a curse?" Dean demanded. "These are deals we're talking about here. Not curses. We need a Faerie who can overrule Titania, release the girls from their family's deals, and maybe even take a few of the tinkly little mofos out while it's at it."

"Dean, Eoin Ó Gríobhtha's first attempt to overwrite a deal resulted in a curse being put on his entire family, remember?" Sam wheedled. "I don't know yet what kind of curse exactly, but once we find that out we _can _use some cursebreaking mojo. And maybe that will help us."

"Yeah, Sam. _Maybe. _In the meantime, Ivy's an empty shell upstairs on her bed and her soul is wandering around in the Otherworld. How long will it be before we get her back if we play it safe, huh?"

With that, he climbed back onto the stool and resumed his search for a spell book.

* * *

"Do you have…powdered ginger, five white candles, five blue candles, angelica root, dried bluebells, myrrh, mistletoe, a hazelnut shell, and…uh…Saint John's Wort?"

Charlie turned from the stove to face the kitchen door. Dean stood there, a rumpled piece of paper in his hand, looking like he'd been up the entire night. And he had been up the entire night, searching through the four spellbooks he'd found in the reading room for a summoning spell that would work on a Faerie powerful enough to swing some spirit-moving mojo.

"What are you trying to do?" she demanded.

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Dean."

_Don't try getting into my head this time, either, Charlie._

She glared at him. "Powdered ginger, angelica root, dried bluebells, myrrh, mistletoe, and Saint John's Wort?" she repeated.

"You forgot a hazelnut shell, five white candles, and five blue candles," Dean added, consulting his list.

Charlie's face became stormy with anger as she realised just exactly what he was planning to do with all that stuff. "You're going to summon a fucking Faerie here?" she burst out. "Are you insane?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Dean wondered out loud.

"Look, Dean, I know you've been to the Otherworld before, but that doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about Faeries," Charlie argued. "For starters, if you go you'll probably end up in a completely different time and location than where Ivy is now. And once you got there, she's most likely not going to be in the same place she started." She paused. "And do I _really _have to point out that neither your family nor mine has a good history with summoning stuff and making deals? Come on, Dean. Be realistic."

"Look," Dean sighed in exasperation, "if you don't want to be a part of this, then just _tell _me where I can go to get this stuff, okay?"

Charlie pursed her lips and shook her head. "No. I'm not allowing you to do this."

"I'm a grown man, Charlie."

"And a pretty dumb one too, sometimes. You can't just go around summoning Faeries, _especially _knowing what you know about my family's history with them!" Charlie insisted.

"We are talking about summoning one _to get Ivy back,_" Dean exploded. "I'm not going to make a deal with any Faerie son of a bitch!"

Charlie shook her head. "Dean, don't you get it? Getting her back by means of a Faerie's powers _means _making a deal."

* * *

The sun was shining and the blue sky didn't have a single wisp of cloud in it, but Ivy was afraid.

She took in her surroundings. She stood on a well-worn path cutting through a field of tall, wispy grass freckled with bright, cheerful flowers. Several small butterflies flitted through the air, alighting on flowers briefly before fluttering back into the air.

Ivy turned to look behind her. The path and field seemed endless.

"Better start walking," she whispered to herself.

* * *

Castiel sat next to Faolán on the porch swing.

"You're angry at yourself," the Angel told the _púca. _"You shouldn't be."

"I'm meant to serve and protect them," Faolán said bitterly, "and look what's happened. Charlie's going off the deep end with worry and Ivy's lost in the Otherworld."

"It's their destiny. You can't change that."

Faolán put his head in his hands. "I have failed them."

"You have failed nobody," Castiel insisted. "What I have learned from walking amongst humans is that you cannot learn to forgive until you have learned to forgive yourself. Humans…the 'good' ones…they're so adept at it. They can forgive so many times for the same mistakes because of love." He paused. "Faolán, if you love these girls, if you love this family, you must forgive yourself."

* * *

Charlie sat on a chair by Ivy's bedside, holding her cousin's hand gently but firmly in her hands.

"We're going to get you out of there, girl. I promise," she said quietly. "Sam's working on finding a solution that'll make sure all of us walk free after this. Dean wanted to summon a Faerie, but…well, no way, right?"

Sam watched from the doorway, hanging back in the hallway just across the threshold. He didn't want to ruin the moment. Charlie and Ivy obviously had a bond as strong as if they were sisters; he knew it because in them he could see the same hardheaded loyalty that existed between him and Dean. There was a difference though: Dean and Sam would stop at nothing to protect each other; hell, they'd gone so far as summoning crossroads demons andmaking deals. Charlie and Ivy, though, exercised a particular caution. Charlie refused to let Dean summon a Faerie, even if summoning a Faerie was the only way to save Ivy.

Fortunately, it wasn't the only way. At least, Sam hoped he was right.

* * *

"We need a psychic," Sam said bluntly as he entered the dining room.

"Huh?" Dean looked up, confused, from his book.

"A psychic," Sam repeated.

"Okay. And why is that?" Dean asked, flipping his book shut and leaning back in his chair.

"Yes, do explain," Charlie urged, stepping in with an armful of books.

"What? More books?" Dean wheedled. Charlie rolled her eyes.

"Ivy's entire…non-physical self is stuck in the Otherworld, right? And it's impossible for us to go after her," Sam began. "So, we get a psychic to find Ivy and bring her back to this house. And then we get her back into her body."

"Sammy, I could kiss you," Dean said.

"Please. Don't," Sam said quickly with a laugh. "Save it for Ivy."

"This is awesome. Now, where do we find a psychic?" Dean wondered.

Charlie grinned. "I can answer that."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

"Let me get this straight," Faolán said. "A psychic will contact Ivy's spirit in the Otherworld to establish a connection to this world, and once Ivy is present, Castiel and I will pull her back into her body?"

"Yep, that's the basic idea," Dean replied. "_Can_ the two of you put her back in her body if we get her spirit to come back here?"

Faolán and Castiel exchanged a glance. "Yes, we can," Castiel replied after a moment. "It will be painful for her, though."

Dean frowned, slightly taken aback. He'd forgotten that no matter how gentle Castiel tried to be, handling souls was a searingly painful business. It was their best chance, though. He had to hand it to Sammy; sometimes the younger Winchester could be a nerdy pain in the backside but he came up with some pretty good plans.

Faolán put his hand on Dean's shoulder. "Don't worry, Dean," he said assuringly. "She will be fine."

* * *

Ivy walked along the path through the field, taking care to keep her wits about her and not become distracted by her surroundings. As beautiful as they were, Ivy knew enough myths of the Otherworld to know that danger lurked in the least likely places. After all, this was where the Gentry lived.

The field abruptly met the edge of a forest. Ivy froze in midstep, the wary fear inside her quickly rising up into a panic. She tried to squash it inside her gut but there was something that felt so wrong about that forest; she couldn't make it go away.

She turned and ran.

* * *

Charlie pulled up on the curb in her Challenger. She sat for a moment in pensieve silence before cutting the motor and getting out of the truck. Making her way up the front path to the front door of the ranch she'd pulled up at, she took several deep breaths to calm herself. It wasn't like she was asking a complete stranger for help.

After all, it was only Lucy.

* * *

Ivy didn't know how far she ran, but she kept going until the well-trod footpath became a cobblestone road. She slowed down and turned on the spot, taking in the scenery around her. The tall grasses and wildflowers were gone, replaced by fields dotted with sheep and bounded by stone walls on either side of the road. On the left side, there was a small whitewashed stone cottage with a thatched roof and a barn made in the same fashion.

Catching her breath, Ivy tried to remember where she had seen this place before.

_Ireland._

* * *

Charlie entered the house with Lucy close behind. A faint spicy smell in the air told her that the boys had already set up the living room.

Lucy put an encouraging hand on her arm. "Don't worry, Charlie," she said gently.

They went into the living room, and upon seeing them Dean and Sam did a double take.

"Hello, boys," Lucy said cheerfully.

"The diner lady is your psychic?" Dean sputtered.

"I am indeed," she replied breezily. "Don't worry, Dean. No Faerie blood magic or deals made here."

"That's great," Sam said quickly before Dean could shove his foot in his mouth with a rude comment. "That's really, really great."

Charlie looked over to the couch. Ivy lay on it on her back, entirely motionless. With a shudder, Charlie moved her gaze elsewhere.

"Charlie tells me that Ivy's spirit is stuck in the Otherworld," Lucy said, "so I'm assuming that's not a really bad Glade candle making the air smell like this."

"Let it never be said that our pantry is lacking," Charlie said. "You guys found everything, right?"

"We just need one thing," Dean replied.

"Which is…?"

"Something of Ivy's that she'd have a deep attachment to," Sam explained. "Like, if she actually…became a ghost one day, it'd be the object that would keep her here after cremation."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sammy, there had to be a better way to say that," he grumbled.

"Sorry." Sam turned back to Charlie. "Does she have something like that?"

"Her deVille, maybe, but that's a bit big for in here," Charlie joked feebly. She bit her lip, trying to think. In a moment she nodded. "Give me a sec."

She returned a few minutes later holdng a jewellery box. "This was her mother's," Charlie explained, setting it down on the sideboard to open it. "And these little beauties are a family heirloom on her side." Charlie held up a pair of gold and pearl earrings, set in the shape of a spray of tiny blossoms.

"Whoa. That's amazing craftsmanship," Sam said as she handed them over. "The detail on this is stunning."

"Okay," Dean muttered. He moved in to take a closer look. "Wow. Okay. That is pretty impressive." He paused. "Wait a sec. Were these made by the Little People, or…?"

"Nope," Charlie confirmed. "Just a very talented goldsmith in London."

* * *

The cobblestones quickly gave way to pavement, and Ivy stuck to the shoulder of the road as she followed it. After crossing over an old stone bridge, she'd figured out where she was: Inistioge, her mother's hometown in County Kilkenny. But it didn't look the same at all, and Ivy walked cautiously.

"It's just an illusion," she told herself under her breath. "You're in the Otherworld, Ivy. You're not back home in Ireland."

The light was fading fast by the time Ivy made it into town. Walking along the deserted streets, she scanned every building for some vaguely familiar landmark. She'd only been to Inistioge a few times as a child, and tried hard to remember something – anything – from those trips that would make her feel safe. As if hiding out in a deserted town in the middle of the Otherworld made her totally safe from harm.

It was better than nothing, though.

She turned down off the main street onto a narrower side street and walked along it until she came to a doorway that looked very familiar. With a start she realised she'd found her mother's childhood home.

"Here goes nothing, I guess," she said, and walked up to it.

* * *

"These are good," Lucy said, holding the earrings in her open palm. "I can definitely feel a strong presence around it. Let's hope that the connection is strong enough between here and the Faerie world."

Dean and Sam drew the curtains on the windows. The thick velvet blocked out the early afternoon light entirely. The room, lit only by the flickering tapers and the small fire in the fireplace, took on an eerie air. In the middle of the coffeetable, Charlie set down a small camping lantern and turned it on. They sat down on the chairs arranged on the other side of the coffee table, facing Ivy's terribly still form on the couch.

"Join hands," Lucy instructed. "Let us begin."

* * *

Ivy entered the house slowly, feeling naked without some kind of weapon to defend herself against whatever might be waiting inside. She shut the door noiselessly behind her and scanned the narrow foyer for something, _anything_, that she could use as a weapon.

Her grandfather's cane was propped up next to the coatrack. If Ivy recalled correctly, it was made from oak.

_Good enough til I can find some iron, _Ivy decided, taking it up and holding it like a bat as she crept into the hallway.

She made her way down the hall towards the back of the house, where – if memory served her right – she knew there should be a small reading room, a larger living room, and an eat-in kitchen. The thought of finding the kitchen made her stomach rumble.

Ivy didn't know how long she'd lain unconscious in the middle of that road through field, but until now she hadn't realised just how hungry she was. It must have been a really long time, she decided as she cautiously entered the kitchen. But despite her hunger, Ivy knew not to eat anything in the Otherworld. If she did, it would be very hard to leave.

The kitchen was devoid of any other life-form, and Ivy wasn't sure if that made her more anxious or more relieved. Taking a deep breath to steady the butterflies in her stomach, she moved back out of the kitchen and retreated down the hall once more.

* * *

"Ivy. Ivy, it's Lucy. I'm here with Charlie, Dean, Sam, Cas, and Faolán," Lucy said. "Can you hear me, Ivy?"

* * *

Ivy whirled around in the living room of her grandparents' house, her skin prickling. She thought she had heard her name, but all she could hear was silence. It was as if a voice had called out to her on a wind.

She hurried out of the living room and made her way towards the stairs.

* * *

"It's time for you to come home," Lucy continued. "We're all here waiting for you. Ivy, please. Come talk to us so we can bring you home."

* * *

Ivy ran into the nearest bedroom and locked the door behind her. She could only hear her name, but the voice was getting clearer.

"Who's there?" she called out, brandishing her grandfather's cane before her. "Who's there?"

Suddenly, she dropped the cane and fell to her knees. It felt like her gut was being slowly, agonisingly pulled out of her body. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she struggled to her feet.

* * *

The flames of the candles began to dance wildly, and the small camping lantern in the middle of the table began to flicker.

"I can feel her," Lucy said. "There's still a strong connection…but…"

"But what?" Dean demanded, scanning the room.

"She's fighting against it," the older woman replied. "She's frightened, so she's fighting against the bond."

"Get her back here, quick," Charlie pleaded.

* * *

_Ivy. Do not fight._

Ivy pitched forward and caught herself on the post of the narrow bed to her left. She gripped the post tightly, gritting her teeth against the pain in her belly.

"Leave…me…alone," she said through her teeth. "Leave me…alone!"

* * *

"She's fighting hard," Lucy said, panicked. "She might break the bond completely."

The fire in the fireplace suddenly flared up and began to blaze, its flaming tongues dancing wildly and growing larger.

"Oh, dear god," Charlie whispered.

"Ivy? Ivy, don't fight it!" Dean called out.

* * *

_Ivy? Ivy, don't fight it!_

Ivy's head snapped up. That voice. That voice was familiar. Strong. Insistent.

"Dean?" she whispered.

* * *

The fire calmed down, but continued to blaze brightly.

Lucy gave Dean an encouraging smile. "Go on," she whispered. "You've connected to her. Bring her home, Dean."

* * *

_Can you hear me?_

"Yes," Ivy said, still bent double against the bed post. The pain in her gut was stronger. "Yes, I can. Dean, don't leave me here."

_We're trying to get you home, Ivy. You can't fight against the connection. That's your only way home._

"But it hurts," Ivy whimpered. "It hurts so much."

_Just be strong. Focus on my voice. Let us pull you back._

The skin on the back of Ivy's neck prickled suddenly. Dean's voice was disembodied, seeming to float on a wind that blew gently through the room whenever he spoke. But there was a physical presence somewhere in the room, an unseen one that was there nonetheless.

* * *

"She says she trusts you, Dean," Lucy said, "but she's frightened out of her mind. She says…she says there's something else in the room with her. She can't see it…and…and she doesn't have any iron or salt. Just a cane made of oak."

"Ivy, you know what do. Grab the cane and defend yourself. But focus on the connection," Dean instructed. "We need you to focus to bring you home."

The lights flickered wildly, and the fire began to jump and dance again.

"She's so scared, Dean," Lucy narrated. "She's screaming. Dean, you have to try harder!"

"What the _hell _do you expect me to do, Lucy?" Dean shouted. "I'm trying to get to her. _Ivy_!"


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

Ivy stumbled backwards against the dresser, steadying herself on it as the house began to shake. Her throat constricted and she couldn't respond to Dean's disembodied voice. She was more scared than she'd ever been in her life.

_Hang in there, Ivy. Focus on my voice. Come on!_

Dean's voice seemed to be fading, but Ivy couldn't tell if it was because the connection was growing weaker or because her blood pounded deafeningly in her ears.

"I'm trapped in my mother's old bedroom, the house is shaking, and there's a monster in the closet!" she yelled. "What the hell do you expect me to do, Dean? I'm defenceless here!"

* * *

"Her…her mother's bedroom?" Sam repeated, the confusion in his voice echoing that in the faces around the table.

"I'll explain later," Faolán said briskly. "Keep trying, Dean."

The candle flames were jumping wildly and the fire had grown to a roaring blaze; Ivy's distress manifested itself in a message that Dean didn't need Lucy to interpret. He gritted his teeth, raking his brain for something – _anything _– that might get her home.

"Wait!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Ivy! You're in your mother's bedroom?"

"Yes, she is, and she's asking why that matters," Lucy replied.

"Look for the jewellery box, Ivy," Dean instructed. "Find the gold earrings with the pearls."

* * *

"Jewellery box. Gold pearl earrings," Ivy whispered frantically to herself, turning around and scanning the top of the dresser. "Jewellery…" She saw it: the exact same jewellery box she had in the human world.

The house ceased to shake, but suddenly an awful banging noise shattered the air. Looking over her shoulder, Ivy saw that the closet door was bucking on its hinges. Thankfully, it was locked, but she had no idea how long it would hold.

She opened up the jewellery box and frantically searched through its velvet-lined interior.

"They're not here," she cried. "They're not here."

A horrible cracking, snapping noise came from the closet. Jewellery box still in hand, she whirled around to see a long, brawny, hairy arm busting through the closet door. She dropped the box, her mouth open in disbelief as the arm retreated and a face appeared in the hole in the door.

It was a Fir Bolg.

* * *

"She says the earrings aren't in the jewellery box and that there's a Fir Bolg in the closet," Lucy narrated.

"A Fir Bolg?" Faolán and Charlie exclaimed together.

"Come on, baby, think!" Dean yelled. "Where _else _could they be?"

"She says she doesn't know. If they're not in the box they're on her mother's ears, and how the…...fudge…is that going to help?"

"Ivy! You are _in the Otherworld_!" Dean said. "Your mother _isn't _there!"

* * *

_So come on, baby, think! Where else could those damn earrings be?_

Ivy's mind raced. The Fir Bolg nearly had the door torn down. How it hadn't already busted through was beyond her.

Something clicked in Ivy's memory, and she raced out the door and down the hall just as the Fir Bolg ploughed through the closet door. She barricaded herslef into the bathroom and faced the counter. She spotted it immediately: a small glass dish next to the sink. She grabbed it, and nearly cried in relief. The earrings lay there.

"Dean, I've found them," she cried out.

And just in time: the Fir Bolg was making quick work of the bathroom door now.

_Good. Now hold onto them real tight, Ivy. We're going to get you. I promise._

Ivy clenched them in her fist and the pain in her gut returned, stronger than before. She gasped at the shock of it, and focused on her reflection the bathroom mirror.

It was only in the mirror that she was able to see what her excursion to the Otherworld had done to her – the toll it had taken on her. Innumerable lesions split her flesh open, the gaping wounds dark and some of them beginning to fester.

She screamed.

* * *

The fire in the fireplace blazed almost out of control; they leapt in a frenzied dance, the colour changing from red, orange, and yellow to yellow, blue, and white as its heat intensified. Even the tapers blazed with longer tongues of fire, and Ivy's once-motionless form on the couch began to seize and buck wildly.

"Ivy?" Charlie exclaimed.

"Don't break the circle, Charlie," Lucy said sharply. "Dean's guiding her home but she needs all of us here to keep the connection strong. She's in extreme emotional stress over there." Lucy opened her eyes. "Castiel, Faolán – get ready."

"Quick, Sam," Castiel said. "Close the circle." He got up and Sam reached across the empty space to grab Dean's hand. Faolán had been standing over Ivy the whole time; now, Castiel joined him.

"Her spirit is nearly tangible," Faolán said. "We just need to get her more…present before we can put her back inside her body."

"Hang in there, Ivy," Dean shouted. "Come on, hang in there! You're almost home!"

* * *

The house began to crack and crumble around her as the Fir Bolg busted down not only the door but the entire bathroom wall. Ivy couldn't stop screaming. It was too overwhelming. Dean's voice shattered the air around her and pierced her brain; her heart hammered in her chest and the painful tugging in her belly grew more agonising.

"Dean!" she screamed, her fist still clenched around the earrings. "Dean!"

Her upper arms suddenly exploded in a searing wave of heat. She screamed wordlessly. Then the world went dark.

* * *

The candle flames exploded and, save for the fire in the fireplace, the room was plunged into darkness. Then, suddenly, a bright light flooded the pitch-black room and the heavy, incense-laden air was split by Ivy's scream as her body and spirit were reunited.

As soon as Lucy nodded, Dean broke the circle and leaped right over the coffeetable to kneel by the couch as Cas and Faolán finished pushing Ivy's spirit back inside her body. Her body flung itself bolt upright, every inch shaking. Her scream broke, and her entire body collapsed into a sobbing, trembling heap into Dean's arms.

"Dean." Castiel's voice, soft and low, cut through Ivy's heart-wrenching sobs. "Dean, I have to put her to sleep. She'll go insane if I don't."

Holding her tight, Dean nodded silently. Castiel placed his hand on Ivy's head, and she fainted.

Charlie, too, had fallen into uncontrollable tears. "Oh, Ivy," she whispered, making her way over to the couch. She wrapped her arms around her unconscious cousin from behind, sandwiching Ivy between her and Dean. "Oh, dear lord."

* * *

Dean laid Ivy down in her bed, the tightness in his throat and chest making it difficult for him to breathe easily. The strange prickling in his eyes made him dash his hand across them, literally pushing back the tears. He didn't understand why he wanted to cry. Was it because if he'd been able to defend her better she wouldn't have passed out back on the path and crossed over to the Otherworld?

As he sat in a chair next to her bed, he wondered how long she'd been over there. How many hours or days had passed for her in the Otherworld? In the day and a half that she'd been out, Dean had quickly come to realise how much he missed her presence.

Castiel had briefly described to him the effect Titania's magic – and all Faerie magic, for that matter – had on first Charlie, and now Ivy. The fact that Titania had put her blood into them made them part Faerie – Ivy much more so than Charlie, and so, Ivy's wounds were much worse than Charlie's had been.

"Lucy said she was in the bathroom when we pulled her out of the Otherworld, right?" Castiel had said. "Well, she must have caught sight of herself in the mirror. The shock of her reflection…that must've been why she was screaming so much."

Sitting by her bedside now, Dean clasped her hand tightly and prayed that Castiel's mojo would work on her fast.

* * *

Charlie was curled up on the couch, a quilt wrapped tightly around her as she tried – for the millionth time since Ivy had come back – to stop crying.

"This entire thing is so _fucked up_," she snapped bitterly as Castiel sat down next to her. "What the _fuck _did our family ever do for things to get this messy?"

"I don't know."

"That was rhetorical."

They sat in silence for a while. Suddenly, Cas put his arm around Charlie.

"Um…what are you doing?" Charlie asked.

"Comforting you," Cas said. "Or would you prefer a hot beverage? Dean prefers whiskey, but I've noticed you don't really drink, so would you li–"

He was silenced by Charlie's kiss.

"Wha…what's going on?" he stammered when she pulled away.

"You kissed me once," Charlie teased. "Too chicken to do it again?"

Cas shook his head. "No, it's not that," he said. "It's just…I mean, I just…well, it's kind of like…"

Charlie looked at him, puzzled. "Cas?"

"I'm an Angel, Charlie," Castiel sputtered. "I haven't exactly…had much time to…well, I mean, there was that one time when I went to that den of iniquity with Dean, but we had to run because I said something very wrong to that girl…"

Charlie stared at him, amused by his nervousness but also a bit taken aback. "So you've never…?"

"No." He looked at her. "Is that a bad thing?"

She giggled. "You're a unicorn?"

"I'm a…no, no, I'm not. I'm an Angel."

Charlie smiled and kissed him again, pushing her quilt aside and climbing into his lap. "Angels have needs too, don't they?" she asked slyly.

"Well, I suppose so but we don't really act on them..." Castiel was taken aback by her forwardness, and cleared his throat loudly as she pulled off his trench coat and began to undo his tie.

"News flash, Cas," Charlie whispered in his ear. "It's a whole new world out there, and I think Angels can do whatever the hell they want."

* * *

The last thing Sam expected to hear coming from the living room was an X-rated film, but he couldn't imagine what else it could be judging the noises being made. He set his mug down on the kitchen counter and made his way to the living room, ready to tell Dean off for watching a skin flick while Ivy lay upstairs in an Angel-coma. He was so not prepared for the sight that greeted him.

Thankfully, neither Charlie nor Castiel noticed him standing in the doorway in stunned silence. Sam quickly snapped back to his senses and scurried back out into the hallway and up the stairs.

Screw putting on the kettle and waiting for it to boil, he decided as he shut the door to his room. He'd gotten used to it pretty quickly, but he could get through one night without a cup of herbal before bed. Right?


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

The hours of the evening ticked away, minute by minute, and Dean remained motionless by Ivy's bedside. He was exhausted beyond belief but he didn't want to miss it if she woke up in the middle of the night. Castiel had told him it was unlikely, but Dean still didn't want to miss it on the offchance that she did.

He missed her, dammit. He missed her something awful.

Ivy had been motionless ever since Castiel had put her under, but she suddenly shifted on the bed. A whimper escaped from her lips, and she started to move as if she was trying to find the sweetspot on the bed. The whimper escalated to a soft cry.

Dean was immediately at attention. "Ivy? Hey, sweetie, whoa, it's okay," he soothed, stroking her hair. "Shh. It's okay."

She remained unconscious, but she calmed quickly. Soon her breathing was normal, and she rested peacefully once more.

Dean rubbed his face, the need to sleep beating down his will to stay awake. After a few minutes he got up from his chair. He removed his socks and shoes slowly. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he pulled off his shirt and his belt before lying down on his side next to Ivy. He put his arms around her, drawing her close to him. If she woke up in the middle of the night or had another nightmare, he wanted her to wake up in his arms so she'd know she was safe.

* * *

Charlie got up from the couch and pulled her underwear and T-shirt back on. Castiel, looking sufficiently rumpled, sat motionless on the couch.

"Cas?" Charlie said.

He looked up. "Does it always feel that good?"

"Well, mostly, yeah."

He nodded appreciatively. "I can see what the pizza man meant now."

Charlie stared at him for a long moment before saying, "Okay. Rule number one. No more talking about the pizza man."

Castiel nodded. "Yes. I am sorry. I…" His hands came up and his fingers were poised for some airquotes, but he paused and quickly clasped his hands in his lap. "…I forgot," he finished meekly.

Charlie bent down in front of him and kissed him gently. "Don't be sorry," she said sweetly. "I'm going to bed. Are you coming?"

"Can we do that again?" Castiel asked eagerly.

"Okay. Rule number two. Humans only have so many goes in them per day."

"But the pi…" Castiel paused abruptly again. "I meant to say, but the _people _in all those…films on the motel TVs seem to have many more goes in them than just one."

"It's called the little blue pill."

"And if I take it, will that help you?"

"It doesn't work that way, Cas."

"I'm confused."

"That's okay. You'll learn."

* * *

Dean woke up in the middle of a field.

"Interesting dream, dude," he muttered to himself, getting to his feet and taking in his surroundings. Dean could tell it was night, but it seemed too bright. Looking up to the sky, he saw that the moon was much larger.

"What the…"

"Welcome to the Otherworld, Dean."

He whirled around to come face to face with Ivy, who stood in the field with him. Her hair hung down her back, and she was barefoot and clad in a simple, dark-coloured dress.

"What do you mean?" he said hoarsely. "We got you back."

"We're dreaming, Dean," she explained, stepping close to him. "You know that."

"But what are we doing in the Otherworld?" he asked her, reaching out and taking her hand.

"I think…I think it's because…" Ivy's voice faltered. "I think it's because this is where I go when I sleep now."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, exactly," she said. "It's like…when Castiel put me to sleep, I snapped right back here. But not in the same way as before. I still feel connected to my body. It's like…well, it's as if I'm moving here like a ghost."

Dean's throat tightened as he pulled her to him. "Ivy, you _were _like a ghost back there today," he said softly. "I thought I'd…_we _had lost you."

Ivy looked up at him tenderly, but worry creased her brow. "Dean," she whispered, "I'm frightened. I don't know why I'm here again." She sank against his body in the protective circle of his arms and laid her head on his chest. "I don't know why I'm back here. I never want to see this place again."

Dean buried his face in her hair, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

"I can't figure out why you're here too, though," she said after a moment. "Not that I'm complaining about you being here with me. But it's weird that you'd pop over here in your own dream."

"Well, I was abducted by Faeries once before," Dean reminded her.

"I never got to say thank you," Ivy said, pulling away from him so that she could look up into his face.

"What for?" he murmured, stroking her hair away from her face.

"For not giving up on me," she replied. "I don't know how you did it, but you saved me, Dean."

Dean kissed the tip of her nose. "You're not getting away from me that easy," he joked. In a serious tone, he continued, "Lucy was surprised too. She couldn't figure out why the connection between you and me was strong enough to keep you grounded."

Ivy went up on her tiptoes and gave him a peck on the lips. "Whatever the reason, I'm glad you got me out."

"So, since this is a dream," Dean said, "when I wake up you'll be left alone?"

Ivy noted the worry in his voice and did her best to soothe it. "It's okay, Dean," she assured him. "Just stay close over on the other side. If anything happens to me, I'll let you know."

* * *

Charlie padded into the kitchen to find Sam with a cup of coffee and a book. "Hey," she said brightly, heading over to the cupboard and getting a mug for herself. "What's new?"

Sam, startled, cleared his throat. He felt somewhat awkward. "Uh, nothing really, I guess," he managed to say. "And yourself? You seem cheerful."

Charlie nodded. "Yeah, I'm feeling good today." She started making herself some breakfast. "I'm going to take Ivy's shift down at the Motors today. Cas said she'll be awake soon but she needs lots of rest."

There was an awkward pause. Sam had a strange sensation in the back of his head; he realised with a start that the tickling feeling was Charlie discreetly poking around in his mind with hers.

"That…kind of doesn't help it be any less awkward," he muttered.

"Jesus. I'm sorry, Sam," Charlie apologised sheepishly. "Wow. Um. Yeah. Okay, we'll make sure that doesn't happen again."

"I'm not judging you or anything. It's just a bit…startling?" Sam floundered.

Charlie held up her hands in surrender. "Let's just move on to something else, why not? Please?"

Sam cleared his throat loudly. "Yeah. Good idea." He held up the book he was reading. "So I've been keeping myself pretty busy with research, and I've been putting it up against your family history. Long story short, I think I know when Titania and her minions will try busting out of the Otherworld."

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "Look at you, brain-box," she teased. "So hit me. What's the ETA?"

"June twenty-first," Sam replied.

"Makes sense," Charlie mused in agreement. "The veil's always the thinnest then, and they always come out anyway that day."

"Exactly. People who know about them will be expecting them to come – which is exactly why everyone will be caught of guard," Sam continued. "Nobody will be expecting hostility from the Gentry, right?"

Charlie nodded. "That's definitely the perfect time for them to do a massive prison break," she said. After a long moment she added, "Castiel told me that Ivy's spirit – and mine, too, for that matter – get torn up when we fight against Titania's magic, as if somehow her powers are able to cut our spirits and infect us. Does the lore say anything about what happens after that?"

Sam's voice was grave. "It does, yes," he confirmed. "There's Faerie blood in both of you, right? When Faerie magic comes into contact with your spirit and is able to cut into it, the magic in you reacts with it. And depending on the aura of the magic – if it's good or if it's evil, I mean – your spirit…kind of…well." Sam paused. "It sort of mutates."

"Excuse me?" Charlie exclaimed.

"I spoke briefly with Castiel and Faolán about it," Sam said hastily, "and they said that you should be fine, Charlie. Castiel's healing powers worked pretty well on you, apparently, and your spirit wasn't left to…fester."

"Gross," Charlie said. "So, wait then – what about Ivy?"

* * *

Dean woke up and was disappointed to see that Ivy was still out cold. His dream journey to the Otherworld hadn't lasted too long: life as a hunter had made Dean an extremely light sleeper, and after waking up once in the middle of the night his sleep had been shallow and punctuated with wide-awake moments. Even though he was used to sleeping with an ear to the ground and one eye open, so to speak, Dean was extremely more on edge now that Faerie business seemed to be underway.

He propped himself up on the pillows and rubbed the last traces of sleep out of his eyes. It was only nine o'clock; Castiel had said that the healing sleep would wear off near the late morning or early afternoon. A long day stretched ahead of him.

There was a knock on the door. Dean swung himself out of bed and pulled on his T-shirt. "Come in," he called out.

Charlie came into the room, a cup of coffee in one hand and a large bowl in the other with a towel over her forearm. "Hey," she said in a hushed voice as she offered him the coffee. "How is she?"

"Still asleep," Dean replied as he took the cup. "She slept through the night, though."

"Good. Castiel's Angel-sleep mojo is working then."

"I saw her," Dean blurted. "In a dream, I mean. Well, actually, in the Otherworld."

"Huh?"

"She said her spirit goes there now when she sleeps, or at least she feels that's how it's going to work from now on," Dean explained. "Doesn't make much sense to me, either."

"Faolán should be explain to explain that to us," Charlie said. "Or Sam."

Dean nodded in agreement. "Well, at least when she wakes up the Angel-sleep will have worked on her, right?" he said, forcing a bright tone into his voice.

Charlie frowned. "Yeah…about that…"


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One**

"You mean to say that her spirit is being infected by Faerie magic?" Dean asked incredulously. He and Charlie had moved out into the hallway to talk, where they were shortly joined by Sam.

"That's the basic gist of it, yeah," replied Sam. "First her spirit-self went into shock from being exposed to so much magic in such a short time, right? Titania's magic was so powerful that Ivy's…Faerie bits couldn't stand the shock, and that caused her spirit to tear open."

"And the magic continued to seep into the wounds," Charlie finished.

"I get that part," Dean said. "Castiel sort of explained it when he put you under, Charlie. But why wouldn't the same thing work on Ivy?"

"Because she actually crossed over into the Otherworld," Faolán said from the landing as he came up. "Charlie remained conscious and fully this world after Titania's magic lost its hold on her, but Ivy's spirit separated from her body and fell into the Otherworld. Plus, Charlie got a hold on her powers over here and developed them since childhood. Ivy's are new. She can hardly control them, and the shock of such deep and sudden exposure…" Faolán paused. "Well, let's just say that her spirit can't fight back against the magic."

"What the hell does that mean?" Charlie asked.

"It means that the magic is taking hold, and fast," Faolán explained.

"Wait," Dean interrupted. "I saw her in a dream on the other side. What does that mean?"

Faolán looked at Dean in horror. "_You_ saw her?"

* * *

Ivy opened her eyes slowly, wincing against the light. She felt a bit stiff, but otherwise she seemed fine. After Dean had left the Otherworld, she'd spent the rest of her time there wandering aimlessly through the Fey wilderness, carefully avoiding contact with anything that could potentially leech more of her humanity. The more she lost, the longer she'd stay – and so the cycle would go until she was completely a part of the Fey. Luckily, with the knowledge she'd gained on the mortal side of the veil as a specialised hunter, she was able to avoid the trickier traps – that, and the fact that her newly-activated Faerie mode seemed be to kicking into gear pretty quickly.

That bothered her the most, even after just one normal night in the Fey. Over there, nearly three days passed. She didn't quite get that about the Otherworld, how sometimes it was slower and others, faster. But regardless of the time differences, Ivy knew that her Fearie blood was working overtime to manifest itself. And that meant Titania was right.

Ivy pushed that thought quickly out of her mind as she slowly eased herself out of bed. She did a few quick, easy stretches to loosen her lumbs. It was early afternoon, and she could hear the faint murmurs of conversation from the floor below. She couldn't make out anything significant, though, and began to busy herself with getting dressed.

* * *

They had moved the huddle into Sam's room, where they discovered that he had set up a nice little research station for himself. A fair number of books from the Griffin collection, as well as some of the Winchesters' own mobile library, were stacked on a night table that Sam had pushed up against the desk. The desk itself was littered with sheets of paper, some of them journal articles on Faerie folklore and others, Sam's own notes.

"So Dean's going across the veil, too," Sam reiterated as he opened up his laptop. "There's only a few ways that can happen, right?"

Faolán nodded. "Dean, how did you get there the first time?"

"I was abducted," Dean replied. "And the other way to get there is to come across an opening in the veil by accident, right?"

"Isn't there another way?" Charlie interjected.

"There _is _a third way, but it's far less common," Sam said, flipping quickly through the book. He scanned a page quickly and jabbed a finger in the middle of it. "There, see?" He handed the book to Dean.

"'If a member of the Gentry wishes to, they may invite a human across the veil to serve any purpose the Gentry sees fit. Some are powerful enough to pull favoured mortals across the veil by merely willing it to happen, but very few possess this ability.'" Dean snapped the book shut. "So, what? Ivy wishes upon a star in the Fey, and I snap out of my body to join her?"

They looked at Faolán, whose slight frown as he nodded thoughtfully only partially confirmed the theory. "It could be somebody else, though," he said. "Even if Ivy's powers are accellerating in their growth, I highly doubt she'd be powerful enough to pull you across with a simple desire."

"But Dean has a phyiscal connection to the Otherworld already," Charlie said, "and he and Ivy have made an…unusually strong bond in such a short time."

Dean raised his eyebrow at her.

"What?" Charlie wheedled. "It's true."

"You _have _gotten quite attached to her, Dean," Sam agreed.

"Such strong emotions might bolster an existing ability," Faolán mused, "but I still don't think it's enough to get Dean across. No, it must be a Faerie."

"Like Titania?" Dean asked.

"Perhaps." Faolán pursed his lips. "Though, why?"

Charlie gasped as she realised a potential reason. "She wants Ivy to come to her, right? So that she can use Ivy to win whatever war she's waging. What if…what if Titania is using Dean as bait?"

"Excuse me?" Dean exclaimed.

"It makes sense," Sam said. "If you're over there, Titania can send some minions to grab you. Ivy would never leave you stranded in the Fey – she'd go after you."

* * *

Dean peeked into Ivy's room and was happy to see her awake and out of bed. She was seated in front of her mirror, leaning on one elbow with her chin in her palm; in her free hand she held a pendant on a chain. Dean noted with mild surprise that she had covered the large, ornate mirror with an enormous shawl.

"Hey," he said, rapping his knuckles on the doorframe as he entered.

She turned around in her chair partway, her still-weary face lighting up somewhat at the sight of him. "Hey yourself," she replied, her voice somewhat ragged.

Dean sat on the trunk at the end of Ivy's bed and rested his elbows on his knees. Fingers tented, he considered his words for a moment before speaking them. "So we found out that there are only a few ways to get into the Otherworld," he began, "and since I don't have any Faerie blood in me and I wasn't trampling down a Faerie ring or whatever, we're going with the theory that I got Ozzed."

Ivy looked at him, her eyebrow raised. "'Ozzed'?" she repeated.

"Yeah. A 'We're not in Kansas anymore' type of thing, which is pretty much what happens, right," Dean replied with a wry smile. "Anyway, what it means is that, according to the lore, the only _other _way I could have gotten there was if…was if somebody wanted me there badly enough."

"What are you trying to say?" Ivy asked. "Just give it to me straight, Dean."

"Well, Faolán is pretty damn sure it's not you pulling me over," Dean said. "In fact, we're all in agreement over that. But…well, there's a running theory that perhaps Titania's the one bringing me over."

"To use you as bait."

"You catch on quick."

Ivy got up from her chair and began to pace, the necklace tangled loosely around her fingers and swinging lazily as she moved. "I know how she works, I guess," she said ruefully, her free hand raking through her hair in an agitated manner. "Dean, I'm so sorry to have dragged you into this."

Dean stood up as well and caught her gently by the wrist. "I offered to stay," he reminded her. "Sam, too. We're here for you and Charlie, and we're going to figure this out together."

* * *

Castiel found Charlie in the garage later that evening, but he noticed immediately that she wasn't working with her usual level of industriousness. In fact, by the time Cas came round, she was hardly working anymore – just cleaning up some tools that had gotten particularly grimy. Cas immediately knew that the stress of their entire situation was starting to break down even Charlie's indomitable spirit.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Charlie asked without turning around, sensing he was there. "Scratch that – what have we gotten the boys into? This entire thing is way too messed up, Cas."

"I know it's difficult," Cas said sympathetically, "but don't let the situation defeat you. There's still a way to get through this…we just haven't found it yet."

Charlie laid the last wrench a towel to dry next to the others, and turned to face him. "Cas, Titania really won't stop until she's got what she wants. And if she's going through Dean to get to Ivy, there's not much we can do to stop her from spiriting him away. Out of all of us, they're the only two who can cross over right now. If Dean gets kidnapped on the other side, Ivy will be all alone."

"Don't despair, Charlie. It will be alright."

Charlie laughed humourlessly. "Right. Because we can keep Dean and Ivy awake for days on end until we kill her, right?" she scoffed. "Because we can lure her out into the open on this side of the veil and get her while she's here? Cas, be real."

Cas put his hands on her shoulders. "Charlie, I _am _being real," the Angel insisted. "This game is not over. There are still pieces on the board. And that means there are still moves you can make."

She looked up at him, her blue eyes bright with tears she could barely keep at bay. "I'm so sick of this…this _burden _my family put on me," she said in a wavering voice. "I know they probably never expected it to escalate like this, but it has and I hate them for it."

"Don't hate, Charlie," Cas said, pulling her into a hug. "Just hope, and persevere."

* * *

Ivy was exhausted but the last thing she wanted to do was sleep. Falling asleep meant crossing over, and Ivy knew that there were countless ways Titania would be able to tell that she was there. And that meant the Faerie Queen would bring Dean over and try to whisk him away. Ivy wasn't going to let that happen. She knew Dean wanted to help and she admired him for it, but there was just too much at stake.

Looking at Dean across the reading room, Ivy couldn't help but admire the stoic way he was powering through this case. It seemed hopeless at every turn – every time they figured something out, a new problem got thrown in their way – but Dean wouldn't give up.

That was exactly why Ivy couldn't let him stick his neck out for her any more than he'd already done.

She shut her book and got up from her armchair, clasping it tightly in her hand as she crossed the room to leave. On her way out, she paused behind Dean, carressing the curve of his neck and shoulder. He grasped her hand in his without turning around, but he spoke.

"You going to bed?" he asked softly.

"In a while. Just need to do one more thing before I turn in," she replied, dropping a kiss on the top of his head.

Once she was out of the room, she walked quickly towards the front door and put on her boots and a light jacket. After making sure her knives were secure and her favourite pistol as loaded, she exited the house quickly and made her way to the barn that stood a short distance away from the house. It was a laboratory of sorts for the Griffins – the place where she and Charlie cooked up different kinds of ammunition. Most of it was standard – silver bullets, rocksalt shells, iron rounds, and the like – but there were some rounds that were particularly special to the kind of nightmares running around Pine Valley, like the iron rounds laced with rock salt and baby tears that she'd been packing the day of the dire cougar hunt.

And even hunters needed some magical herbs to swing some mojo.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

"Where's Ivy?" Sam asked, coming into the reading room with his laptop under one arm and some books under the other.

"Not sure," Dean replied, leaning back in his chair and flipping his book shut with a casual flick of his wrist. "She said she had one last thing to do before she went to bed." He paused, a slight smile on his lips. "I was actually going to go turn in myself soon enough."

Sam raised an eyebrow but refrained from saying anything. "Well, she's not upstairs," he said.

Dean looked up at his brother, a frown now on his face. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah. I've been up in my room this whole time with the door open and I didn't see or hear her go up," Sam replied.

Dean vaguely recalled hearing the front door open and close. "She probably went out for some air or something," he murmured.

Sam looked at him incredulously. "At a time like this you're perfectly fine with letting her wander around by herself at night?" he squawked.

Dean got up from his chair and started putting some books back on the shelf. "Don't get me wrong, Sammy," he said. "I'm still worried as hell about her. But the last thing I want to do is start making her feel caged because we're all too hellbent on keeping her safe. She's a hunter, just like us."

"Dean, we're talking about some majorly powerful Fey wanting her served up to them on a plate," Sam reminded him.

"Yeah, and I'm talking about giving her some breathing room and not making her feel like we think she can't take care of herself," Dean shot back. "Trust me, Sam. That's all I'm asking for." He paused, then added, "Besides, ten bucks says Faolán's gone to keep an eye on her, anyway."

* * *

"Ivy, what are you doing?"

Ivy whirled around, startled to hear Faolán's voice coming from the shadows. He walked slowly into the circle of light created by the lanterns Ivy had lit for her workspace.

"Just…" Ivy found herself floundering for words. Faolán in human form with the ability to speak was still a novelty; she was having a lot of difficulty getting used to him this way. "Just getting together a protection spell," she finally said a bit sheepishly.

"For Dean." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"Sam and Charlie, too." She turned back to the table and began assembling the herb vials she had been crafting.

"Don't you think that's a bit…unnecessary and unfair, perhaps?" Faolán asked, coming over and leaning on the wall by the table.

"What on earth do you mean," Ivy murmured, carefully pouring finely ground asafetida, laurel, comfrey, hazel, and lemon verbena through a funnel into four vials – three miniature-sized ones, and one the size of a whiskey tumbler – which each held one small, reddish-brown sphere of rock. Faolán couldn't help but be impressed by Ivy's knowledge and skill in assembling protection talismans, but then he remembered that Ivy was well-trained hunter who not only specialised in matters of the Fey, but was also slowly becoming one.

He quickly shoved that thought from his mind and watched her thoughtfully.

"They – the Winchesters – know the consequences but are still willing to help," Faolán continued. "That should count for something, Ivy. And Charlie knows the score just as well as you do, and when has she ever abandoned you? Is it fair to forbid them from doing their job, especially without them knowing?"

"I'm not forbidding them from doing anything," Ivy argued. "I'm making it so that she can't get to them." She added betony and angelia root to the vials, then started rifling through another set of sachets before tossing dried yarrow and ivy leaves into her mortar and pestle. "Besides," she added, "I'm not slipping these to them in a drink or whatever. I'm going to give these to them up front."

"But you're not telling them what they're for."

"So? I'm telling Charlie, though."

Ivy checked the consistency of her dried leaves and ground them more vigorously – out of necessity, but also out of pent-up frustration. After a minute or two, she had the fine, powder-like consistency she needed, and added it to the vials. Crossing the room to a small, ornately carved hutch, she opened one of its drawers and selected four vial-stoppers made from cork and topped with small spheres of tiger-iron, each to match one of the crystal vials she had filled. Selecting three chains and a coil of wire from another drawer and a small wooden box from a third, she went back to the work table.

"Tiger-iron, silver chains and wire, and…" Faolán opened the box. "…blue chalcedony beads. And those rocks inside the vials – moqui marbles, aren't they? Impressively protective."

"Yeah, well, she's a big boss," Ivy muttered absentmindedly. She put stoppers in the three smaller vials and began wrapping the vial necks in the silver wire. Using tweezers, she deftly trimmed the ends of the wires and formed them into loops, through which she passed the silver chains. She quickly strung a single blue chalcedony bead onto each chain, and secured the clasps.

After finishing the small talismans, she set them aside. In a small bowl, she mixed salt and crushed amber, and then selected from the hutch a box of oak ash. Once they were combined, she funnelled them into the large vial, inserted the stopper, and cleaned up the space.

Then she turned to Faolán.

"This," she said, taking the large vial, "is to sprinkle around the house."

"Your house is already protected," Faolán said, taking the vial carefully into his hands.

"I'm not taking any chances," Ivy reminded him, "and besides, obviously Titania can still swing enough mojo to get Dean across the veil even when he's in the house."

"Alright. And these ones are for Dean, Charlie, and Sam."

"Yes." Ivy picked them up gently, taking care not to tangle the delicate chains. "Alright. I'm done here, I think. Let's get back inside the house."1

* * *

"Ivy, isn't it a bit late to do a protection ritual on the house?" Charlie asked, holding the large vial up to the light in the living room.

"We're doing it tomorrow, silly," Ivy replied. "But you should start wearing this." She removed one of the talismans from her pocket and extended her hand, open palm up with the talisman resting in the middle.

Charlie saw it and immediately shook her head. "I don't know what you've put in there but I'm not wearing one," she insisted. "That's going to prevent Titania from getting near us, isn't it?"

"And what's so bad about that?"

"You _know _that we won't be able to go near her _either _wearing one of those," Charlie exclaimed, "and you're asking me if that's a bad thing?"

Ivy sighed. "Charlie, you know what she can do to us," she explained. "Even if she manages to bust through the house defenses, if you're wearing it she won't be abe to harm you."

"And what about yourself?" Charlie continued.

"She's not going to do anything more to me that could threaten me," Ivy said wryly. "I'm too valuable, remember?"

"Your spirit can't handle the magic it's already been exposed to. If she busts in you _could _die anyway if she casts another spell on you!"

"We know it, and I'm pretty sure she does, too," Ivy countered. "Which is why she won't do anything else to damage my spirit-parts." She paused, then spoke in a hushed, somber voice. "Charlie, please. I don't ask for much, and when I do you know it's because I have to. Please. Wear it."

With a resigned sigh, Charlie took the talisman from Ivy's open hand and lowered the chain over her head. The miniature vial hung around her neck, the miniscule crystal and tiger-iron catching the light in a peculiar way that made it jump and dance with Charlie's every move.

"Well, it looks good at least," Charlie grumbled, handlng it gently as she looked down at it, but she gave Ivy a small smile anyway.

* * *

Dean, breathless and spent but still holding Ivy tightly against him, moved forward until Ivy was lying on her back against the pillows. Readjusting his position so that they were slightly more comfortable but still joined, he continued to kiss her. He wanted to stay lost in the feeling of her limbs tangled in his and the soft curves of her firm body pressed seamlessly against him, and in the subtle but nonetheless intoxicating scent of her skin and hair.

Ivy, too, didn't want to stop. She kissed him back just as hard, her head spinning from the crazy rush of being with him. She didn't know when it had happened but in the short time that the Winchesters had been under the Griffins' roof, her initial physical attraction to Dean – which had sparked on the first day they'd met, despite her dislike for him at first – had grown immensely. She wouldn't dare define it, but Ivy couldn't deny that she cared for Dean quite deeply. Ivy also couldn't deny that she wished, against all hope, that maybe Dean felt a little of the same for her. She knew it was crazy, but the thought of it was nice, and slighty whitewashed the fact that Ivy had stepped completely out of character by sleeping with him in the first place.

After a few long, blissful minutes, Dean slowly pulled away from her to lie down beside her. Holding each other and lying nose to nose, they smiled at one another. Ivy breathed deeply, content and warm in the circle of Dean's arms. It was almost perfect enough to make her forget about what was going on.

Shortly, though, she pulled away and sat up straight, shaking out her hair and kicking aside the sheets.

"Ivy?" Dean queried, propping himself up on his elbows. He was going to press further, but even in the moonlight he got a pretty good view of her as she crossed the room to her desk, so he shut up.

She picked up her jacket from where she'd casually thrown it over the back of her desk chair and rooted through the pockets briefly. Returning to the bed, she sat back on her heels next to Dean, her hands clasped tightly around whatever it was she'd taken.

"Dean," Ivy said quietly, "if I asked you to do something for me, would you do it?"

Dean nodded. "Of course, Ivy," he said without hesitating. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Ivy assured him. She opened her hands to reveal a small vial with a jewel-topped stopper on a chain. "Can you wear this?"

Dean picked it up and dangled it from the silver chain momentarily. "What's it for?"

"Protection. Against Faerie magic."

"What's in it?" he asked, inspecting it.

"Just some herbs," Ivy replied vaguely, "and there are some semi-precious stones thrown in for good luck."

"You made this?" Dean asked.

"Yes." There was a pleading tone in her voice and an equally pleading look in her eyes.

Dean considered the talisman for another moment before he slid it over his head and laid back down on the bed. He reached up and traced a soft line down Ivy's arm from her shoulder, smiling up at her. "You don't have to worry about me, you know," he joked.

"Yes, I do."

He noted the anxiety in her voice and pulled her down to him for a long kiss. "It'll be fine," he assured her, stroking her cheek. "Whatever happens, it'll be fine in the end."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

Castiel lay on his back, his arm around Charlie. Her rested against his chest, and he absentmindedly twirled a soft golden curl in his fingers. There wasn't much to say. These physical experiences were very new to him still, and although he enjoyed them very much it was difficult for him to wrap his head around the tumult of new feelings churning inside him. Charlie was rather…adept between the sheets, or so he presumed. He didn't exactly have anything else by which to judge. Nevertheless, he couldn't deny that the physical experience was quite a rush; he now understood a bit better why Dean could sometimes be pretty keen on getting some 'action.'

"I think your new necklace looks very pretty," he said out of nowhere, "although it is a very odd pendant."

Charlie laughed. "Ivy just made it for me," she replied. "It's a talisman to ward off evil magic."

"That's interesting." Castiel frowned. "Is that why I've been smelling something weird?"

"Huh?"

"The herbs she put in it are quite…pungent," Castiel explained. "Hm. That's probably why it works."

"It's the smell that makes them work?" Charlie asked, sniffing the vial in vain.

"No, not really. It's part of it, but there's much more to warding magic than that," Castiel replied. "I'm not entirely sure how it all works, really. Faolán would be better at answering those questions."

"Hm." Charlie snuggled closer to him and lay silently next to him. After a moment, she asked, "Cas, do you ever sleep?"

"No. I have no need to."

"Then what do you do all night?"

"Most nights I wander around and meditate. But on a night like tonight, I'll stay here after you fall asleep. You're quite a peaceful sleeper. You don't kick. Dean says that girls who kick are the reason why he hates 'staying over.'"

Charlie stifled a laugh. "Dean seems to be very…open with you," she remarked carefully.

"He has been trying to 'educate' me ever since we became friends. He says it's difficult but until I have better 'people skills' he's not giving up."

"That sounds like Dean, alright."

Castiel nodded. "He is steadfast, and loyal. Sam, too, though he can veer off course more easily sometimes. But regardless - you and Ivy couldn't ask for better allies. That's why I sent them here: to meet you and Ivy so they could help you." He paused, then added, "Of course, I didn't count on anyone getting any 'action' but you're all only human so I suppose it's natural. As for myself, this is a strange but exciting experience. I do like it."

"Good." Charlie turned over onto her otherside and pulled him with her so that he spooned her. "I'm exhausted. See you in the morning?"

"Yes. Sleep well, Charlie. I'll be here."

* * *

Sam woke up early – just after sunrise – and found a note on his bedside table.

'Sam – wear it. It's a talisman against evil magic. Faolán.'

He looked at what lay underneath the tented paper: a small, clear vial containing a very fine powder, closed by a cork topped with a polished grey stone streaked with rusty browns, and suspended on a silver chain next to a blue stone bead. His brow furrowed with intrigue, and after a moment of consideration, shrugged and fastened it around his neck.

Curiousity might have killed the cat, but it hadn't been enough to put Sam away for good just yet. A few minutes online told him that the stones on the talisman were tiger-iron and blue chalcedony – powerful stones against psychic attacks and evil magic.

"Interesting," he said to himself.

After doing his morning exercise routine and showering, Sam dressed quickly and made his way downstairs. As he hit the landing, an overpowering combination of smells hit his nostrils.

"What the –" he exclaimed.

"Sorry, Sam." Charlie popped out of the living room, coughing and waving thick tendrils of grey smoke away from her face. "I think I put a little too much incense on the fire."

"Just a little?" Ivy said, emerging from the living room with her nose wrinkled. "That blend is pretty expensive, you know."

"What's in it?" Sam asked.

"Althea, asafetida, starflower, chicory, black hellabore, and toadflax," Ivy said.

Sam blinked. "Right. Because that…explains everything."

"We're enforcing the house defenses," Charlie told him. "Given our family's knack for getting into trouble with the Fey, we're already pretty well-protected – magic-wise – but Titania can obviously penetrate the walls and get to Dean."

"All the herbs we blended for this incense we're using now are known for their strong protective powers. They'll add another layer of protection and bolster the house's original magical defenses," Ivy continued. "We've just finished up the ritual – now we just have to let the fire burn."

Faolán and Castiel came in at that moment, a large empty jar in the _púca_'s hand. "All done," he said. "A sachet on all compass points of the house."

"Good. Thanks, guys," Charlie said, pulling her hair off her face into a messy knot.

"It really stinks in here," Castiel commented.

"Yeah, Charlie's fault," Ivy laughed. "Anyone ready for breakfast?"

"Let's do it _al fresco,_" Charlie suggested. "We can't open up the windows til the blend's finished burning."

"Jeez. What the hell's on the fire?"

They turned to the steps and saw a bleary-eyed Dean standing halfway down the staircase, his face contorted into a shocked, disgusted grimace.

"Slightly behind the times, Dean," Sam chuckled. "Come on. The girls can explain over breakfast."

* * *

Together, they'd whipped up an amazing breakfast spread, with enough bacon and pancakes to satisfy even Dean's bottomless stomach. They ate and made small talk, relishing the friendship around the table and also the fact that for once, the conversation didn't revolve around evil Faeries and psychic powers.

But all good things must come to an end, and it was Sam who broke the ice.

"So you made these," he said, leaning back in his chair and holding up his talisman.

"Yeah," Ivy replied. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"You girls sure know a hell of a lot about magical plants," he remarked, picking up an orange slice from his plate and biting into it.

"Comes with the job," Charlie said. "Every hunter specialises in something."

"How do these things work, anyway?" Dean wanted to know.

All eyes turned to Faolán.

"Well, it's a combination of things," the _púca _said, staring over the rim of his teacup pensievely. "The smell is a big part of it. But what's more important is the fact that the scents of the plants get their powers from the planets and the stars."

"So all that astrology mumbo-jumbo…?" Dean said.

"Not quite so mumbo-jumbo. Well, most of it, anyway. During their seasons, the plants and herbs become infused with the powers of ancient deities that remain in the cosmos. These powers become dormant but preserved within the plants, and when they are combined with simple spells, they're awakened." Faolán paused. "That's the short version, anyway."

"And these will protect us from what, exactly?" Sam asked.

"Evil Faerie magic," Ivy said quickly. "Titania's specialty, in fact. She's been using Charlie's powers to spy on us and she can penetrate the house defenses to bring Dean into the Otherworld when he sleeps. By wearing the talismans and by putting spells on the house, we're increasing our chances of staying one or two steps ahead of her."

"Which brings me to my next question," Dean said. He drained his coffee cup and set it down on the table before continuing. "How are we going to gank the bitch?"

"There are several ways," Sam replied.

"Why am I not surprised," Charlie laughed.

"What?" Sam asked defensively, but he smiled back at her. "So, anyway, the most common ways to get rid of a Faerie are with iron, fire, or an exorcising spell."

"Right, like that one we used on that leprechaun," Dean interjected.

"Exactly. However, Titania's a heavyweight – much more powerful than that leprechaun, and with a grudge to boot," Sam continued. "So we're going to have to get creative."

"Just how creative do we have to get?" Ivy queried.

Once more, all eyes turned to Faolán.

"You're the resident expert," Dean explained. "How do we kill a Faerie Queen?"

Faolán sighed deeply. "It's next to impossible," he said bluntly.

Dean rubbed his face with his hands, exasperated beyond belief. "Great."

"I said 'next to impossible,' not outright impossible," Faolán said hastily, sensing a Dean Winchester outburst if he didn't explain himself quickly enough. "It's normally a very, very long process because we must wait for the twenty-first of June, but we've lucked out. It's only the fifteenth."

"Gives us time to prepare," Sam mused.

"Not a huge window though," Charlie pointed out.

"Better than nothing," Dean cut in. "So, Faolán. What do we do?"

Faolán caught Castiel's gaze. The Angel had said nothing at all so far, but the first four words out of his mouth in the entire conversation floored everyone.

"Ivy must do it."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

Everyone stared, gawking like fish out of water, before Ivy sputtered, "What the _fuck _did you just say?"

"I'm sorry, but it's true," Faolán said earnestly, his bright green eyes pained somewhat. "Believe you me, I'd give anything for it to be different but there's no other way."

"And why is that, huh?" Dean demanded.

"She is the one destined to end the war," Faolán said, "and this is how she will end it."

* * *

Ivy paced the length of the reading room as she read, desperately trying to remain calm as she searched the pages of her book for some clue on how to kill a Faerie.

"This is insane," she said out loud to nobody. "This is the craziest thing I've ever been told."

She threw her book onto the table in frustration, her last nerves fraying as fast as she tried to think. A mortal killing a Faerie would bring nothing but devastation to his or her family and hometown. Except, of course, Ivy wasn't entirely mortal.

Oh no, she was part Faerie, and on the slippery slope to becoming a full one, apparently.

Ivy slumped into an armchair, raking her hands through her long auburn hair and trying to keep herself together. For the first time in several years a raging sense of hopelessness was slowly permeating her entire body. It was a feeling from long ago that Ivy was, unfortunately, all too familiar with. Following the initial shock of losing first her immediate family, and then her aunt and uncle, Ivy had bounced back in such a way that, had it not been for Charlie's constant presence in her life, she would have become a shell.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, still unable to keep her thoughts straight. Making the entire situation worse was the fact that the dull headache that had been knocking on her skull had grown worse as the day pressed on. Now, in the midafternoon, she was approaching migraine levels.

As she immersed herself in trying to wrap her head around everything, a soft tapping noise entered her sphere of consciousness somewhere in the back of her mind, but she paid no heed.

It was the subsequent knock on the door that pulled her out of her scatterbrained solace; Ivy sat up straight and turned in the chair to see Sam bearing two steaming mugs.

"Cup of tea?" he offered, coming into the room and sitting down on the chair opposite Ivy's.

Ivy took it, smiling her thanks. "How are you?"

"Tired of reading," Sam said with a rueful smile. "I haven't doen much else since this case started, but I'm alright. More importantly, though, how are _you_?"

Ivy sipped gingerly before replying, "Oh, you know. Turning into Tinkerbell. It's all grand."

They shared an awkward laugh, but Ivy felt her spirits lift a bit, even as she elaborated slightly. "I've started to notice certain things," she ventured tentatively.

"Like?" Sam prompted.

"Well, for starters, the herbs we used on the house today gave me a headache."

"I think _everyone _got a headache off those."

Ivy shook her head. "Don't be fooled by my composure. I'm approaching a migraine as we speak," she said. "It's been gotten worse over the duration of the herbs burning. Charlie and Faolán have been keeping that fire stoked all day as the spell requires at least twelve hours of burning."

"It's a repellant spell, essentially, right?"

"Yeah. The main components are all meant to cloak the house and everything inside it, preventing the Fey from using psychic powers or magic on any of us," Ivy confirmed. "Charlie's still able to read minds because she's not….genetically Faerie the way I am."

"And your visions?" Sam asked.

"Haven't had any today," Ivy replied. "I've had the power for a couple of years, but I barely have any control over it. I can't see the future at will. It just…comes and goes…and it's usually the same thing over and over again until it…happens."

Her voice trailed off as the memory of her latest vision series hit her. As always, the scene she saw got more vivid with each recurrence, but her last vision had happened a couple of days ago.

"Ivy? What is it?" Sam's voice sliced through her thoughts.

She shook herself back to the present. "Just…going over the latest vision I've been having," she replied shakily.

"I was meaning to ask you about that, actually…but I didn't know if I'm in the position do so," Sam confided.

"That's fine," Ivy assured him. "It's a bit of a weird one, as far as visions go. I mean, all the visions I've had before are concrete, if that makes any sense. Like…" She paused, searching for the right words. "Well, as far as content goes, normally they're to do with a case that I'm already working on. Dangerous hunts. And I see what will happen to the people involved. Not me and Charlie, but the people that the monsters are hurting. As for clarity and accuracy, they're usually a bit blurry at the beginning but with each occurrence I can see more vividly until it's practically HDTV in my head."

"What's different about this time?"

"Everything. I can't see anything clearly, and it's happened about three times now, right? And even though we're on a hunt, the details that I _can _see don't have anything to do with the case."

Sam nodded, turning the information over in his mind as she gave it to him. "Ivy, would you be able to describe everything you are able to see clearly? Maybe it does have something to do with this case and we just can't see it yet."

Ivy shut her eyes and focused on the memory. "It's very dark," she began, "so maybe that's what's making it hard to see more details. There's candlelight and there's this…this _smell._"

"What kind of smell is it?" Sam coaxed.

"Damp stone," she replied. "Damp stone, and fire…something burning, like…" Ivy breathed in deeply, trying to aide her memory. "…like roast with too many herbs on it."

Sam raised an eyebrow, but she was talking faster now and pressing the bases of her palms into her eyes. "And blood, there's the smell of blood. There's a man chained oto a stone wall, surrounded by candles…but I can't see his face."

The pitch of her voice was rising, the tone becoming more frantic. Sam realised with a start that Ivy was probably starting to see more than just a memory. As soon as that thought occurred to him, it was confirmed.

Ivy's body began to shake, her voice following suit as hysteria started to set in. "I don't know if he's alive or not. He's cut all over…his entire torso and even his arms – they're cut with strange symbols. And somebody's laughing somewhere in the darkness where I can't see."

Ivy lowered her hands and opened her eyes to look at Sam, but he wasn't there. The reading room wasn't there. She looked around frantically, surrounded by darkness pierced by flickering, feeble candlelight. Her nostrils were assaulted and filled by an unbearable, cloying smell.

She realised where she was, and with the icy weight of dread filling her gut, turned around.

The man on the wall hung lifelessly, but the blood from the symbols cut into his flesh still dripped slowly down his skin. The ground beneath him, from what Ivy could make out, was darkened in gruesome patterns by splatters of dried blood. He was completely off the ground, secured to the wall by iron cuffs on both ankles and wrists, and his head hung down onto his chest.

She approached him cautiously, unsure of his identity but certain she did not want to know. There was something familiar about the toned, muscular body on the wall; something she seemed to know intimately.

A groan escaped him, and Ivy froze. Slowly he raised his head, moaning in agony; his chest heaved as he came to consciousness.

"Ivy…"

She screamed as Dean's face, bruised and bloodied, looked at her through the candlelit darkness.

The laughter – that awful, high-pitched, grating cackle – pierced the air.

She shut her eyes and covered her ears. "_What are you doing to him_?" she screamed. "_Why are you torturing him_?"

"Ivy…"

"Dean," she whimpered, collapsing to her knees. "Oh, God, _Dean…_I'm so sorry…"

"Ivy!"

The voice calling her name wasn't Dean's anymore. It cut through everything – Dean's groans of pains, the evil laughter, even the blood pounding in Ivy's ears. Hands gripped her shoulders, and when Ivy opened her eyes, she was staring up into Sam's face.

"Sammy? What's going on?"

Ivy scrambled to her feet and turned to the door. It was Dean.

Inexplicably, she threw herself across the room and into his arms. She broke down completely into body-shaking sobs.

"Sammy?" Dean repeated.

"She had…she had a vision," Sam stammered. "Dean, I think she saw you getting tortured."


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

Ivy stared at the pen and paper before her, chewing her lower lip nervously. She knew some of the symbols she'd seen, but there were others she had never encountered before.

Sam had drawn a crude outline of an upper body on the paper, and now Ivy had to fill in the blanks, so to speak. After she had calmed down and the others had been summoned, Faolán had suggested Ivy draw them in their precise placements as accurately as she could.

"The placement of the symbols on his body might be important," he'd explained. "Ivy, I know this is difficult, but you must try as hard as you can, alright?"

Dean, seated next to her, put his hand over hers and gave an encouraging squeeze. Their eyes met, and Ivy nodded slightly before taking up the pen. She said nothing as she drew, but Faolán provided a running commentary.

"Those two are Ogham symbols – _muin _and _edad. _Ogham letters share their names with trees and shrubs and plants: here, the vine and the poplar, respectively," he began. "This one is a triple spiral. That can mean several things to you humans, depending on how your knowledge and beliefs influence your interpretations. To us Fey, however, it is a symbol of a god before even our time – Manannán. That's the double spiral, symbolic of balance and of the seasons."

The next two symbols took some time for Ivy to draw. They had been crudely carved into Dean's flesh in her vision, but as she drew she said, "I'm elaborating these for clarity's sake. I'm not entirely sure if these were the intended symbols though."

"That one looks like a salmon," Faolán remarked, pointing to the first after she finished. He moved his finger to the second. "That's a griffin."

"What do those mean again?" Charlie asked, speaking for the first time since being summoned to the reading room.

"Not paying attention to your mythology again?" Faolán teased gently. "The salmon stands for knowledge, depth, and insight. The griffin – interestingly enough, not only your namesake, but also a symbol of natural dichotomies. Man and woman, darkness and light, good and evil."

"Were there any more?" Castiel asked Ivy.

"Just two." She drew the first of them.

"That's the Sword of Nuada," Faolán said quietly. "He was the first king of the Tuatha Dé Dannan. His sword is symbolic of supreme will…specifically, all are subject to the will of the sword." He paused before asking, "And the last one?"

She drew it.

"The equal-armed Celtic cross. Four ways to ascension."

"Ascension to what?" Dean demanded.

"To any number of things, but mainly to a more intimate knowledge of oneself, nature, wordly wisdom, and the deities of our people," Faolán explained.

"So what does all of this mean, Faolán?" Castiel asked.

Faolán took the drawing from Ivy and studied it more closely as everyone waited on tenterhooks. After what seemed like an eternity, he set the paper back down on the table.

"Notice these?" he asked, pointing to the _edad, _double spiral, griffin, and the salmon.

"They're on his left side," Sam remarked. "The…_edad_...is on his upper left arm, and the animals are over his heart...the spiral down near the bottom of his rib cage."

Faolán nodded. "Remember those natural dualities I mentioned earlier?"

"Light and dark, dude and chick, that stuff?" Dean asked.

"Yes. Well, the body is also full of dualities. In this case, the sides of the body are what we're concered with…the left side is associated with darkness as well as the material world. It is also the defensive side, or the one that protects the rest of the body – traditionally speaking…and it's also the side concerned with spirituality and emotions."

"Which means…?" Charlie coaxed.

Castiel jumped in. "Darkness is considered permanent, and material objects obscure or veil the supernatural world. Where offense is considered a manifestation of strength, defense is one of endurance. Endurance is considered a particularly femine trait. As for spirituality and emotions, that's more or less self-explanatory, right?"

Charlie sighed in exasperation. "_English,_" she said.

"What he means," Faolán cut in, "is that these symbols all correspond to something in Dean's life that is associated with darkness, material objects, femininity, spirituality, and emotions."

"What's that, then?" Ivy piped up.

"You're aware of the Druid zodiac?" Faolán asked. Charlie and Ivy nodded, but the Winchesters looked confused, so Faolán explained. "It's how ancient Celtic Druids divided the year, but instead of animals, they used plants. Mostly trees, but they're all robust plants. Anyway, in the same way that the animal-based zodiac attributes particular characteristics to a person based on date of birth, so too does the Druid zodiar. This symbol, _edad, _is a symbol of the poplar."

"So what characteristics do poplars have?" Sam wanted to know.

"They are like the Leos of the Druid zodiac: not only do they share the same dates, to an extent, but they are also proud and independent, with magnetic personalities." Faolán pursed his lips and thought a moment before moving on to the next symbol. "The Ancient Celts also had an animal-based zodiac separate from the traditional one. In that cycle, the salmon corresponds to the dates of the poplar."

"What about the griffin?" Charlie asked.

Faolán nodded. "I was just going to get to that," he remarked. "It is the most important of this group of symbols, not only because it symbolises duality and therefore emphasises the natural duality of the world and all its forces. It is a direct reference to your family."

They sat in silence for a moment, and Ivy and Charlie shared a long look. Ivy had already pieced together this section of the puzzle long before Faolán had reached the griffin.

Dean noticed the look they exchanged immediately. "Alright, you two," he said. "Spill the beans."

Ivy looked at him. "It's me," she said, pointing at the symbols on the left-hand side of the paper. "_I _am the link between you and these symbols. The poplar tree and the salmon are the zodiac cycles that correspond to my birthday – I'm a Leo, born the ninth of August. And as Faolán's pointed out, the griffin is pretty self-explanatory."

Dean pursed his lips, his brow furrowed in thought. "Okay, so what about the rest of them?" he finally asked. "Does their placement on my…on my body have any significance?"

"They are all on the opposite side of the body, save for the triple spiral and the Cross of Ascension," Faolán said. "Those are in the middle. So, on the left we have the _muin _– the vine – and the double spiral. We've also got the Sword of Nuada. The vine symbolises bounty, regeneration, and growth. The double spiral stands for balance as well as the changing of the seasons, or the solstices and equinoxes. The sword signifies the supremacy of physical prowess."

Sam had been piecing it together in his mind, and spoke. "So – and correct me if I'm wrong – we've got these symbols on the right side of his body, which means they stand for light and masculinity and…well, the supernatural?"

"Very good, Sam," Faolán said. "These things signify what lie beyond the material world."

"The Otherworld," Charlie murmured, and the _púca _nodded.

"The Otherworld," he repeated, pointing at the right. He moved his finger to the left. "This world."

"United by this," Sam finished, pointing to the triple spiral and the Cross of Ascension.

"Manannán was an ancient god who preceded the Tuatha Dé Dannan," Faolán said, "and the Cross of Ascension symbolises a pathway to a higher plane of existence. In the middle, here, they unite the two sides."

It dawned on Charlie and Ivy at the same time, but it was Sam who voiced the conclusion.

"So it's what Titania was talking about," he said. "All that stuff about the war between the Faeries and Ivy destined to bring balance. It's all here."

"Yeah, carved into _me,_" Dean reminded his brother.

"Precisely," Castiel said. "If this vision follows the same pattern as the rest of the ones Ivy has had before, that means it will, eventually come true."

Dean looked like he was going to be sick.

Castiel turned to Faolán. "We know the whole 'prophecy' already, so why would anyone go through the trouble of writing it out on Dean's body with his own flesh and blood?"

"Wow, way to state that gently," Dean grumbled.

"Ivy, you said you smelled something burning?" Faolán inquired.

"Yes. It smelled like a Sunday roast covered in way too many herbs and seasonings," Ivy recalled. "And there were loads of candles everywhere."

"Sounds like a spell," Sam remarked.

"That's probably exactly what it is," the _púca _agreed. "If so, then it's a powerful spell to bind one to one's destiny."

All eyes turned to Ivy.

"So you're saying that Titania will try to bind me to my fate in the Faerie war?" Ivy said slowly, "and that she'll use Dean as a spell component to make sure it all happens?"

"In a word, yes." Faolán's voice was, as ever, grave. "It's quite elegant actually. A spell of that magnitude requires fresh human blood as well as a human body upon which to inscribe the desired outcomes of the spell, and it helps immensely if the sacrifice has a direct connection to the target of the spell. Titania also wants Ivy to come to her in the Otherworld so that she can capture Ivy and make sure she's around to fulfil her destiny. Dean is the perfect candidate."

"Great." Dean stood abruptly and began to pace about the room.

"There's one thing you didn't get straight, though," Charlie piped up.

"What's that, then?" Faolán queried.

"Ivy's visions don't _always _play out exactly as they appear to her," Charlie explained.

"That's true. Sometimes based on what I've seen, we've been able to come up with a plan that circumvents the vision coming true in its entirety," Ivy agreed.

"So Dean won't necessarily become a spell component," Sam surmised.

"Exactly."

"Which brings us back to the original question," Dean cut in. "How do we gank this bitch?"

"Ivy has to kill her," Castiel reminded him.

"Yeah, well, _without _putting Ivy anywhere near her," Dean snapped.

Castiel and Faolán shook their heads. "Impossible," the Angel said. "The lore clearly states that Ivy must kill Titania."

"Fuck the lore," Dean hissed. "There is _always _a way around this sacrificial lamb bullshit. Just because Ivy's visions don't always come true doesn't mean we can just send her in with all guns blazing to take down the Faerie Bitch Queen."

* * *

Castiel entered the garage and found Charlie there, unsurprisingly. With nothing more to work on – either on her truck or her motorcycle – for the time being, she found herself restless. Given the circumstances, she and Ivy had already spoken with Skipper Delahunty and Jamie O'Harraughton to make arrangements for them to take over the Motors until the entire hunt was over. Although the Griffins had worked together on cases before, it was rare for both Charlie and Ivy to be so caught up in a hunt that neither of them had time to work at the Motors; nonetheless, the boys had been more than willing to take on the sudden influx of shifts – as well as the windfall of cash that came with it.

Cas found Charlie perched on the tailgate of her Challenger, one knee drawn up and her chin resting on it. Her arms were wrapped around that knee, and one hand absentmindedly twirled a long golden curl. It looked like she was deep in her thoughts, and Castiel hated to disturb her. But he was concerned for Charlie, and approached her.

"Are you alright?" he asked, cutting to the chase as he sat down beside her.

"I don't know. Maybe?" Charlie replied flatly. "I mean, my family's in trouble with the Faeries. That's not exactly big news around here."

Castiel frowned, but Charlie continued before he could speak. "But there's only so much I can take, you know? There are so many things going on right now and at the very centre of it is this goddamn family legacy that will never, ever end. It's just this cycle of madness that spirals down for God knows how long into the future and nothing we can do now will make a difference." Spent after such a litany, she fell silent.

The Angel put his arm around her, and she unfolded herself to lean into him. "Cas," she said after a moment, "why does life suck so much sometimes?"

"To make you appreciate the times when it doesn't suck?" Cas suggested.

Charlie laughed and kissed his cheek. "That's a thought."

"Good…I was afraid I 'dropped the ball' on that one."

"No, you definitely didn't," Charlie said with a smile.

Cas kissed her forehead as she fell silent. "I'm sure we'll be able to figure this all out," he assured her. "Just because the lore dictates Ivy has to kill Titania doesn't mean it has to turn out that way."

"You really think so?"

"Yes. I've seen many things in my time, and none quite as extraordinary as the Winchesters in action," Cas told her. "Especially when they've both got something they believe in so much, they'll stop at nothing to defend it. Dean cares about Ivy, Charlie. There is no doubt about that. He will find a way to protect her, and Sam will help. And we'll all do our part."

"Yeah, I guess we will," Charlie mused. She kissed him after a moment, and pulled away with a smile before Cas could get too caught up in the moment. Human emotions and physical feelings were still vastly uncharted territory for him.

"Where are the others?" Castiel asked, tugging at his tie.

"In the house. Faolán is meditating. It's very odd. He lit different herbs on fire. Sam decided to take a nap. I don't know about Dean and Ivy but they are together, so you can guess where that's going to end up," Charlie replied. "Why?"

Cas got off the tailgate and strode over to the garage door. He shut it and turned back, walking towards Charlie with a sly grin. "Because," he said, coming up to her and sliding his coat off, "maybe we can…disappear for a while, too."

* * *

Ivy and Dean were indeed together, but Ivy's migraine had gone into overdrive after the ordeal of her vision and Dean was too riled up to want to get up to any frisky business. Instead, Dean lounged in the chair next to his bed, book in hand, while Ivy lay upon the bed itself, a cool damp towel over her eyes.

"Christ. What the hell is Faolán burning?" he asked after a long stretch of silence.

Still with her eyes covered, Ivy sniffed the air. "He said he was going to enter reverie, so it's probably some meditation herbs."

"Reverie?"

"The Fey don't sleep. They sort of…meditate."

"…of course they do."

Ivy laughed and readjusted the towel. "They're supernatural, remember? They don't exactly have the same wiring as us."

Dean shut his book and got up out of the chair to pace about the room. "They mostly seem crazy to me," he remarked dryly.

"Isn't everyone?" Ivy retorted, but she smiled.

Dean rolled his eyes. Sitting down on the bed next to Ivy, he put his hand over hers and gave it a soft squeeze. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

Ivy removed the cloth from her eyes and proppped herself up on one elbow. "Not really," she said bluntly, her brow knitted in a frown. "I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this and I just can't."

Dean motioned for her to scoot over and she did so that he could lie down beside her. She instinctively snuggled against his side, feeling calmer in such close proximitiy to him. But not _much _calmer.

"It's not like I don't know what I'm up against, so really I shouldn't be this scared, right?" Ivy continued. She didn't care if she was babbling. She needed to let it out somehow. "But I think that's what's freaking me out so much. I know exactly what I'm up against and it feels so…so hopeless."

Dean knew exactly what that felt like, and he held her close. "I know what you mean," he said after a moment. "Sometimes it's so overwhelming that you just want it all to be over. But you can't let it consume you. Trust me, Ivy…there's always a way out somehow."

Ivy could tell from the tone of his voice that this was something he'd spent a lot of time mulling over. She wasn't surprised; given what she knew about the Winchesters, both before meeting them and after getting to know them personally, she could imagine that Dean and Sam had experienced way too much for any normal people to handle.

"It's a hard life, isn't it?" Dean continued, turning onto his side and lying nose-to-nose with Ivy. "I've tried before to get out of it…didn't work so well."

"Yeah?" Ivy asked. Dean nodded, but didn't elaborate. Ivy took up the slack in the conversation. "You know, my dad left Pine Valley to get away from this life and make sure I didn't get caught up in it. Ton of good that did, huh? It's like us hunters are cursed or something."

"I guess we must be," Dean admitted with a dry, humourless laugh. "It's hard to find somebody who gets it."

Ivy could sense an extremely deep and painful wound lurking beneath Dean's tough, hardened surface, but she didn't want to pry. Charlie had mentioned a few days earlier that Dean had nearly gone guano over her mentioning Lisa, and although Ivy's intuition told her that this woman lay at the heart of Dean's pain, she didn't want to go setting him off.

They lay in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts and worries. Dean broke the silence again, with a question that caught Ivy off guard.

"Have you ever loved somebody, Ivy?"

She pulled away a bit to get a better look at his face. There was nothing but seriousness written all over it, and she found herself at a loss for words. What was he trying to say – was there even anything to that question beyond curiousity?

Ivy pushed those thoughts aside, still trying to find words to tell him the honest truth. But the truth embarassed her, for an unknown reason, and she couldn't bring herself to admit that she had never been in love. Admitting that would mean admitting something else, and by no means whatsoever was this the time to be opening up _that _much.

She moved so that she was lying on her back. Looking up at the ceiling, she simply said, "Like you said, this is a hard life. I've had enough taken from me in this lifetime."

Dean frowned. Her skittishness and blatant, but unsuccesful, attempt to avoid the subject perturbed him greatly. "What's that supposed to mean?" he bleated.

"That means I don't want to talk about it." She rolled over onto her other side and, as Dean got up off the bed and left the room, desperately tried to start rebuilding some of the walls Dean somehow had managed to tear down.


End file.
